Michael Goheen on How To Read The Bible As One Story

The Biblical Drama of Redemption

 Starting with the Gospel

In this paper I would like to address the issue of reading the Bible as one story. It would be tempting to begin with the idea of story and then argue that the Bible conforms to this idea. I think one could proceed this way, although it would run the risk of starting with a category alien to Scripture and then fitting the gospel to that category. Perhaps it would be better to begin where all our thinking should start, i.e. with the gospel.

Jesus announced good news: ‘The kingdom of God is breaking into history.’ This is not the kind of announcement that could be relegated to the religion page of a newspaper. This is world news—front page stuff! This is headline news on CNN. It was an announcement that God’s healing power was invading history in Jesus and by the Spirit to restore the whole creation to again live under the gracious rule of God.

His proclamation of good news stood as the climactic moment of a story of God’s redemptive work told in the Old Testament that stretched back to God’s promise to Adam and Eve. Jesus announced that the power of God to renew the entire creation was now present in Jesus by the Spirit. This liberating power was demonstrated in Jesus’ life and deeds, and explained by his words. At the cross he battled the power of evil and gained the decisive victory. In his resurrection he entered as the firstborn into the resurrection life of the new creation. Before his ascension he commissioned his followers to continue his mission of making the gospel known until he returned. He now reigns in power at the right hand of God over all creation and by His Spirit is making known his restoring and comprehensive rule through His people as they embody and proclaim the good news. One day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. But until then the church has been taken up into the Spirit’s work of making the good news of the kingdom known.

From this brief summary of the gospel, the following observations are important for our subject.

First, the gospel is a redirecting power. It is not first of all doctrine or theology, nor is it worldview, but the renewing power of God unto salvation. The gospel is the instrument of God’s Spirit to restore all of creation.

Second, the gospel is restorative, that is, Jesus announces the restoration of the creation from sin. The most basic categories present in the gospel are creation, fall, and redemption. Jesus’ announcement declares a resounding ‘yes’ to his good creation and at the same time a definitive ‘no’ to the sin that has defiled it. The gospel is about the restoration and renewal of the creation from sin. In the history of the Western church redemption has often been misunderstood to be salvation from the creation rather than salvation of the creation. In the proclamation of the gospel Jesus announces that he is liberating the good creation from the power of sin.

Third, the gospel is comprehensive in its scope. The gospel Jesus announced was a gospel of the kingdom. Surprisingly even though this was the central category of Jesus’ proclamation and ministry it has often disappeared into obscurity. The result has been a greatly reduced scope of salvation, limited to humanity, even human souls. Scripturally, the kingdom is about God’s reign over his entire creation; the kingdom stresses the all- encompassing nature of the salvation Jesus embodied, announced, and accomplished. The gospel which forms the lens through which we look at the world is the power of God through which the exalted Christ, on the basis of his death and resurrection, restores all of life by His Spirit to again live under His authority and Word.

The fourth observation is central to our topic: Jesus and the good news that he announces is the fulfillment of a long story that unfolds in the Old Testament. Jesus’ arrival into history is into a Jewish community who was looking for the ending and climax of a long story of God’s redemptive acts. All Jews knew that this story was leading up to the grand culmination when God would act decisively and finally to redeem the world. They disagreed on who would do it, how it would be done, when it would happen, and how they were to live until it did. But they all recognized that the story of God’s redemptive acts was moving toward a consummation. Jesus announces that he is the goal of this redemptive story. So, on the one hand, if we are to understand the gospel of Jesus we must see Jesus in the context of the Old Testament story (cf. Luke 24:25-27). On the other hand, if we are to properly understand the Biblical story, we must see it through the lens of Jesus and the gospel (cf. John 5:36-57; Luke 24:44-45). But not only is Jesus the climactic moment in the story, he points forward to the end. The end has not yet come (Acts 1:6-7). Thus attending to Jesus points us back to a story told in the Old Testament, and forward to the end of the story.

There is a final observation: the church is essential to the gospel. That is, Jesus did not make provision for the communication of the good news through history and in every culture until the end of the story by writing a book as did Mohammed. Rather he formed a community to be the bearer of this good news. Their identity is bound up in their being sent by Jesus to make known the good news of the kingdom. The story of the Bible is their life.

 Human Life is Shaped by Some Story

All of human life is shaped by some story. Consider the following event: A fox compliments a crow and tells it that it has a lovely voice. He asks it to sing a song. What is the meaning of this event? It is not too difficult to see that the meaning of this event can only be understood in terms of some story. Perhaps the fox wants to eat the crow and this compliment is a ploy to get the crow to drop its guard. Perhaps the fox is a kind- hearted fox that simply wants to encourage the poor crow. Perhaps the fox is a tone-deaf choir director seeking to begin a choir among the forest animals. Clearly these three stories would give the event different meanings. In fact, this event is part of an Aesop’s fable. There is a famine in the forest and the crow sits perched in a tree with a piece of cheese in its mouth. The various animals try to get the cheese with different methods. The fox compliments the crow and the foolish bird opens its mouth to sing. The cheese falls out and the fox runs away with it. The moral of the story is don’t be deceived by flattery.

This little exercise illustrates that an event can only be understood in the context of a narrative framework. So it is with our lives. Lesslie Newbigin puts it this way: “The way we understand human life depends on what conception we have of the human story. What is the real story of which my life story is a part?” (Leslie Newbigin. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 15). What Newbigin is referring to here is not a linguistically constructed narrative world that we choose to live in. Rather it is to speak of story as the essential shape of a worldview, as an interpretation of cosmic history that gives meaning to human life. Story provides the deepest structural framework in which human life is to be understood. There is no more fundamental way in which human beings interpret their lives than through a story. N. T. Wright says that “a story . . . is . . . the best way of talking about the way the world actually is” (N.T. Wright. The New Testament and the People of God. London: SPCK, 40. Italics added). It is because the world has been created by God in a temporal way that story can help us understand the way the world is. Brian Walsh says that ‘because the world is temporal, in process, a worldview always entails a story, a myth which provides its adherents with an understanding of their own role in the global history of good and evil. Such a story tells us who we are in history and why we are here’ (Walsh, Worldviews, Modernity, and the Task of Christian College Education, in Faculty Dialogue 18, Fall 1992, 6).

If one lives in a culture shaped by the Western story there are two stories that are on offer: the Biblical and the humanist. Newbigin points out that

In our contemporary culture . . . two quite different stories are told. One is the story of evolution, of the development of species through the survival of the strong, and the story of the rise of civilization, our type of civilization, and its success in giving humankind mastery of nature. The other story is the one embodied in the Bible, the story of creation and fall, of God’s election of a people to be the bearers of his purpose for humankind, and of the coming of the one in whom that purpose is to be fulfilled. These are two different and incompatible stories (Newbigin, Gospel in a Pluralist Society, 15-16).

There are a number of things that can be said about both of these stories.

(1) Both of these stories claim to tell the true story of the world. They are in the language of postmodernism ‘metanarratives’ or in the language of Hegel, claims to be ‘universal history.’

(2) Consequently both of these stories are comprehensive. That is, they claim the whole of our lives—social, cultural, political, and individual.

(3) Both of these stories are embodied by a community. They are not simply the fruit of individual experience and insight but stories that shape whole communities. The Western cultural community is shaped by the humanist story. The church is the new humankind that is shaped by the Biblical story.

(4) Both of these stories are religious; they are rooted in faith commitments or ultimate assumptions. Contrary to the claim that the humanist story is ‘neutral’ or ‘secular’ while the Biblical story is ‘religious’, both stories are rooted in ultimate commitments or beliefs.

(5) As both stories claim to tell the true story of the world, they issue an invitation to all hearers to come live in the story, and pursue its goals.

The humanist and Biblical stories are to some degree incompatible; they tell two different stories. It will be evident that if the church is faithful to its story there will be to some degree a clash of stories.

The Bible Tells One Story

The Bible tells one unfolding story of redemption against the backdrop of creation and humanity’s fall into sin. As N.T. Wright has put it, the divine drama told in Scripture ‘offers a story which is the story of the whole world. It is public truth’ (Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, 41-42).

When we speak of the biblical story as a narrative we are making an ontological claim. It is a claim that this is the way God created the world; the story of the Bible tells us the way the world really is. There is no more fundamental way to speak about the nature of God’s world than to speak of it in terms of a story. Nor is the biblical story to be understood simply as a local tale about a certain ethnic group or religion. It makes a comprehensive claim about the world: it is public truth. The biblical story encompasses all of reality—north, south, east, west, past, present, and future. It begins with the creation of all things and ends with the renewal of all things. In between it offers an interpretation of the meaning of cosmic history. It, therefore, makes a comprehensive claim; our stories, our reality must find a place in this story. As Loughlin has put it: The Biblical story is ‘omnivorous: it seeks to overcome our reality’ (Loughlin, G., Telling God’s Story: Bible, Church, and Narrative Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, 37).

Hans Frei makes the same point when he quotes Auerbach’s striking contrast between Homer’s Odyssey and the Old Testament story. Speaking of the Biblical story he says: ‘Far from seeking, like Homer, merely to make us forget our own reality for a few hours, it seeks to overcome our reality: we are to fit our own life into its world, feel ourselves to be elements in its structure of universal history . . . Everything else that happens in the world can only be conceived as an element in this sequence; into it everything that is known about the world . . . must be fitted as an ingredient of the divine plan’ (Frei, Hans. The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974, 3).

This insight has been gaining ground in various areas of philosophy and theology. In philosophical ethics Alasdaire MacIntyre states that I can only answer the question “What am I to do?” if I can answer the prior question “Of what story do I find myself a part?” (MacIntyre, Alasdaire. After Virtue. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1981, 216) In practical theology, for example, C. V. Gerkin says ‘This sense in which practical theological thinking is grounded in narrative is, of course, rooted in the faith that the Bible provides us with an overarching narrative in which all other narratives of the world are nested. The Bible is the story of God. The story of the world is first and foremost the story of God’s activity in creating, sustaining, and redeeming the world to fulfill God’s purposes for it’ (Gerkin, C.V. 1986. Widening the Horizons: Pastoral Responses to a Fragmented Society, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 49). In theological ethics Stanley Hauerwas contends that ‘the narrative character of Christian convictions is neither incidental nor accidental to Christian belief. There is no more fundamental way to talk of God than in a story. The fact that we come to know God through the recounting of the story of Israel and the life of Jesus is decisive for our truthful understanding of the kind of God we worship as well as the world in which we exist’ (Hauerwas, Stanley. 1983. The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983, 25).

Sidney Greidanus believes it is important for preaching to hold that ‘Scripture teaches one universal kingdom history that encompasses all of created reality: past, present, and future. . . . its vision of history extends backward all the way to the beginning of time and forward all the way to the last day. . . . the biblical vision of history spans time from the first creation to the new creation, encompassing all of created reality’ (Sidney Greidanus.1988. The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 95). Newbigin states further the importance of story for preaching: ‘Preaching is the announcing of news, the telling of a narrative. In a society that has a different story to tell about itself, preaching has to be firmly and unapologetically rooted in the real story’ (In another place, Newbigin – A Word In Season, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994, 204-205 – speaks of his personal Bible reading, but his words could as easily be applied to his understanding of preaching: ‘I more and more find the precious part of each day to be the thirty or forty minutes I spend each morning before breakfast with the Bible. All the rest of the day I am bombarded with the stories that the world is telling about itself. I am more and more skeptical about these stories. As I take time to immerse myself in the story that the Bible tells, my vision is cleared and I see things in another way. I see the day that lies ahead in its place in God’s story.’).

And finally, in Biblical studies N. T. Wright wants to proceed with a method that joins ‘together the three enterprises of literary, historical and theological study of the New Testament and to do so in particular by the use of the category of “story”’ (Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, 139).

And yet it is the case that often Christians do not see the Bible as one story. A Hindu scholar of the world’s religions once said to Lesslie Newbigin:

I can’t understand why you missionaries present the Bible to us in India as a book of religion. It is not a book of religion–and anyway we have plenty of books of religion in India. We don’t need any more! I find in your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole of creation and the history of the human race. And therefore a unique interpretation of the human person as a responsible actor in history. That is unique. There is nothing else in the whole religious literature of the world to put alongside it (Newbigin, 1999, A Walk Through the Bible, Louisville, KY: John Knox Westminster Press, 4. See also Lesslie Newbigin, 1989, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 89).

We have fragmented the Bible into bits—moral bits, systematic-theological bits, devotional bits, historical-critical bits, narrative bits, and homiletical bits. When the Bible is broken up in this way there is no comprehensive grand narrative to withstand the power of the comprehensive humanist narrative that shapes our culture. The Bible bits are accommodated to the more comprehensive cultural story, and it becomes that story—i.e. the cultural story—that shapes our lives.

 The Bible as a Six Act Play

In The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Story of the Bible we have attempted to tell the story of the Bible in six acts [Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael W. Goheen, The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Story of the Bible, Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004. We are dependant on N. T. Wright for the metaphor of a drama. He explicates the Biblical story in five acts (‘How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?’, Vox Evangelica 21 (1991) 7-32; and The New Testament and the People of God. London: SPCK, 1992, 139- 143). Brian Walsh and Richard Middleton add a sixth act (Truth is Stranger Than It Used To Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1995, 182). We follow Walsh and Middleton, and use the latter structure. See our website http://www.biblicaltheology.ca for resources on using the book including a seven page summary of the Biblical story].

In Act One God calls into being a marvellous creation. He creates human beings in his image to live in fellowship with him and to explore and care for the riches of his creation.

In Act Two humanity refuses to live under the Creator’s word, and chooses to seek life apart from Him. It results in disaster; the whole creation is brought into the train of human rebellion.

In Act Three God chooses a people, Israel, to embody his creational and redemptive purposes for the world. Israel is formed into a people and placed on the land to shine as a light. They fail in their calling. Yet God promises through the prophets that Israel’s failure will not derail His plan.

In Act Four God sends Jesus. Jesus carries out Israel’s calling is a faithful light to the world. But he does more: He defeats the power of sin at the cross, rises from the dead inaugurating the new creation, and pours out His Spirit that his people might taste of this coming salvation. Before he takes His position of authority over the creation he gathers his disciples together and tells them: ‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’

Act Five tells us the story of the church’s mission from Jerusalem to Rome in the first hundred or so years. But the story ends on an incomplete note. The story is to continue; the church’s mission is to continue in all places until Jesus returns. We are invited into this story to witness to the comprehensive rule of God in Jesus coming at the goal of history.

Act Six is a yet future act. Jesus will return and complete his restoration work.

We might ask how this story might be authoritative for our lives. N. T. Wright believes that the authority of the biblical story is tied up with its overarching narrative form. He offers a rich metaphor to explicate this authority (Wright, ‘How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?’ and The New Testament and the People of God, 139- 143).

Imagine that a Shakespearian play is discovered for the first time but most of the fifth act is missing. The decision to stage the play is made. The first four acts and the remnant of the fifth act are given to well-trained and experienced Shakespearian actors who immerse themselves both in the first part of the play and in the culture and time of Shakespeare. They are told to work out the concluding fifth act for themselves.

This conclusion must be both consistent and innovative. It must be consistent with the first part of the play. The actors must immerse themselves in full sympathy in the unfinished drama. The first four acts would contain its own cumulative forward movement that would demand that the play be concluded in a way consistent and fitting with that impetus. Yet an appropriate conclusion would not mean a simple repetition or imitation of the earlier acts. The actors would carry forward the logic of the play in a creative improvisation. Such an improvisation would be an authentic conclusion if it were coherent with the earlier acts.

This metaphor provides a specific analogy for how the biblical story might function authoritatively to shape the life of the believing community. Wright sees the biblical story as consisting of four acts – creation, fall, Israel, Jesus – plus the first scene of the fifth act that narrates the beginning of the church’s mission. Furthermore this fifth act offers hints at how the play is to end. Thus the church’s life is lived out consistent with the forward impetus of the first acts and moving toward and anticipating the intended conclusion. The first scene of act five, the church’s story, begins to draw out and implement the significance of the first four acts, especially act four. The church continues today to do the same in fresh and creative ways in new cultural situations. This requires a patient examination and thorough immersion in what act four is all about, how act four is to be understood in light of acts one through three, and how the first scene of act five faithfully carries forward act four.

This view of the authority of the Biblical story assumes a clear understanding of our place in the story. It is important not only to understand that the Bible is one cosmic story of the world but also where we are at in the story. The Old Testament looked to a time when the kingdom of God would be ushered in in fullness. This was the goal of God’s redemptive work. When Jesus emerged he announced the arrival of the kingdom yet it did not come as expected. Examining the gospels and listening to Jesus we hear that the kingdom of God is already here but not yet arrived. What can this mean? If my wife tells me that our guests from out of town are already here but not yet arrived I would wonder what on earth she is saying. How can the kingdom be already here but not yet arrived? And what is the significance of the ‘already-not yet’ time period of the coming kingdom?

First we have been given a foretaste of the kingdom. The gospels often compare the kingdom to a feast, a banquet. When the end comes we will enjoy the full banquet of the kingdom. However, the church has been given a foretaste of that kingdom banquet. A foretaste of the kingdom constitutes us as witnesses. The reason we have been offered a foretaste of the salvation of the end is so that we can witness to that salvation. Let me offer another illustration. The people of God are like a movie preview or trailer. A movie trailer gives actual footage of the movie that is coming in the future so that people will want to watch it. The people of God are a kingdom preview. We embody the salvation of the kingdom which is coming in the future so that people will see it and want it. That is what the witness is all about. We are a sign that points to the coming of the fullness of the kingdom in the future. We witness to its presence and its future consummation. A biblical witness is a witness to the kingdom, to God’s rule over all of human life.

The worldview significance of our place in the story can be illustrated by N. T. Wright’s reflection on worldview. In their popular book on worldview, Richard Middleton and Brian Walsh argue that the Bible provides a worldview by answering foundational questions that shape our lives. Those questions are: Who are we? Where are we? What’s wrong? What’s the remedy? (Walsh and Middleton, The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian World View, Downers Grove: IVP, 1984, 35). Wright follows Walsh and Middleton in his masterly discussion of the importance of worldview for New Testament studies (Wright, N. T., The New Testament and the People of God, 29-144). Four years later in his second volume he writes that there is a fifth question that needs to be added to the other four, a question that is fundamental for human life. That question is ‘what time is it?’ He says: ‘Since writing The New Testament and the People of God I have realized that ‘what time is it?’ needs adding to the four questions I started with (though at what point in the order could be discussed further). Without it, the structure collapses into timelessness which characterizes some non-Judaeo-Christian worldviews.

Heading Off Misunderstandings

Saying that the Bible is one unfolding story could lead to misunderstandings. So it would be good to say a few words to head off some of those misconceptions. First by saying that the Bible is one unfolding story I am not saying that the Bible is a nice neat novel. It is not a single volume but a ‘sprawling, capacious narrative’ (Peterson, Eugene. ‘Living into God’s Story.’ This article originally appeared on the website ‘The Ooze: Conversation for a Journey’ (www.theooze.com). It can be accessed at http://www,churchcrossing.com/articles.cfm?fuseaction=articledetail&122).

In his discussion on the Bible as a metanarrative Richard Bauckham states that the ‘Bible does not have a carefully plotted single story-line, like, for example a conventional novel. It is a sprawling collection of narratives along with much non-narrative material that stands in a variety of relationships to the narratives’ (Bauckham, Richard. Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003, 92).

He continues that major stretches of the main story are told more than once in divergent ways; there are a plurality of angles on the same subject matter (for example, the gospels). He points further to many ways in which there is a ‘profusion and sheer untidiness of the narrative materials’ (Ibid). He concludes that all this ‘makes any sort of finality in summarizing the biblical story inconceivable’ (Ibid, 93).

Secondly, the Bible is not only a narrative document. There are many other genres of literature in the Bible as well. Newbigin states that while the ‘Bible is essentially narrative in form’ that ‘it contains, indeed, much else: prayer, poetry, legislation, ethical teaching and so on.’ Yet, he maintains, ‘essentially it is a story’ (Lesslie Newbigin. The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995, 81).

James Barr differs radically with Newbigin (and me, i.e., Michael Goheen) on what exactly story means. Yet he too sees the overall shape of Scripture as a narrative within which other genres of Scripture fit. Here is how he puts it:

. . . in my conception all of the Bible counts as ‘story.’ A people’s story is not necessarily purely narrative: materials of many kinds may be slotted into a narrative structure, and this is done in the Hebrew Bible. Thus legal materials are inserted and appear, almost entirely, as part of the Moses story. In this case they are incorporated into the narrative. Others are more loosely attached: songs and hymns of the temple and of individuals, mostly collected in the Book of Psalms but some slotted into the narratives as in Samuel, Kings and Chronicles. . . . Wisdom books: whether . . . they came from Solomon, or because they were general lore of Israel, they are part of the story also.

In the New Testament the letters of great leaders, and an apocalyptic book like Revelation, form part of the story, along with the more strictly narrative writings. Thus in general, although not all parts of the Bible are narrative, the narrative character of the story elements provides a better framework into which the non-narrative parts may be fitted than any framework based on the non-narrative parts into which the story elements could be fitted (James Barr. The Concept of Biblical Theology: An Old Testament Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999, 356).

A third misunderstanding is tied up with the notion of story. In some approaches to narrative theology—in fact, in Barr’s understanding above—the notion of story enables the reader to ignore questions of historicity. Story may be only a linguistically constructed narrative by a religious community, and no more than that. Yet I use story to speak of an interpretation of history. It is important that these events really happened. The Bible requires ‘a reality that corresponds to it’ (Gabriel Fackre. Narrative Theology from an Evangelical Perspective, in Yandell, K.E., ed., Faith and Narrative, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, 197). The historicity of the narrative matters: ‘. . .it is of the very essence of the matter that the events and places which you read in your Bible are part of the real world and the real history–the same world in which you live . . .’ (Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, 68).

 The Importance of Understanding the Bible as One Story

The importance of understanding the Bible as one story can be seen by noting Newbigin’s notion of a missionary encounter. A missionary encounter is the normal position the church assumes in its culture if it is faithful. It assumes two comprehensive yet incompatible stories. The Bible tells one story about the world and human life while another equally all-embracive story shapes out culture. Christian discipleship always takes cultural shape. So in the life of the Christian community there will be an encounter between two equally comprehensive stories. When the church really believes that its story is true and shapes their whole lives by it, the foundational idolatrous faith, assumed in the cultural story, will be challenged. As the church challenges that story it offers a credible alternative; it calls for conversion. It is an invitation to see and live in the world in the light of another story. Our place in the story is to embody the end and invite others into that true story.

If the church is to be faithful to its missionary calling, it must recover the Bible as one true story according to Newbigin: ‘I do not believe that we can speak effectively of the Gospel as a word addressed to our culture unless we recover a sense of the Scriptures as a canonical whole, as the story which provides the true context for our understanding of the meaning of our lives – both personal and public’ (Lesslie Newbigin. ‘Response to “Word of God?”’, John Coventry SJ, The Gospel and our Culture Newsletter 8, 1991, 2).

If the story of the Bible is fragmented into bits it can easily be absorbed into the reigning story of culture rather than challenging it. Newbigin’s recognition of this, and thus his passion for the importance of seeing the Bible as one story, comes from his missionary experience. In India he saw how easy it was for the Bible to be absorbed into a more comprehensive and alien worldview. The Bible as one comprehensive story in contrast to the comprehensive worldview of Hinduism was a matter of life and death in India. In the West it is equally serious. A fragmented Bible, then, can lead to a church that is unfaithful, syncretistically accommodated to the idolatry of its cultural story. Or to use the words of the Apostle Paul, a church without a comprehensive story to withstand the power of the cultural story will be ‘conformed to the world’ (Romans 12:1-2).

This article is essentially the substance of two keynote addresses given at the ‘Inhabiting the Biblical Story’ conference at the Victorian University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand, 16 July 2005.

About the Author: Dr. Michael W. Goheen teaches at Trinity Western University, Langley, B.C., Canada. He is the author of The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story; Living at the Crossroads: An Introduction to Christian Worldview; and A Light to the Nations: The Missional Church and the Biblical Story.

How J. Hudson Taylor Learned How to Abide in Christ

Abiding, Not Striving or Struggling

Missionary pioneer J. Hudson Taylor of China was working and worrying so frantically that his health was about to break. Just when his friends feared he was near a breakdown, Taylor received a letter from fellow missionary John McCarthy that told of a discovery McCarthy had made from John 15—the joy of abiding in Christ. McCarthy’s letter said in part:

Abiding, not striving or struggling; looking off unto Him; trusting Him for present power … this is not new, and yet ’tis new to me.… Christ literally all seems to me now the power, the only power for service; the only ground for unchanging joy.

As Hudson Taylor read this letter at his mission station in Chin-kiang on Saturday, September 4, 1869, his own eyes were opened. “As I read,” he recalled, “I saw it all. I looked to Jesus, and when I saw, oh how the joy flowed!” Writing to his sister in England, he said:

As to work, mine was never so plentiful, so responsible, or so difficult; but the weight and strain are all gone. The last month or more has been perhaps the happiest of my life, and I long to tell you a little of what the Lord has done for my soul.…

When the agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter from dear McCarthy was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I had never known it before. McCarthy, who had been much exercised by the same sense of failure, but saw the light before I did, wrote (I quote from memory): “But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith but by resting on the Faithful One.”

As I read, I saw it all!.… As I thought of the Vine and the branches, what light the blessed Spirit poured into my soul.

Source of illustration: Robert J. Morgan. Nelson’s Complete Book of Stories, Illustrations, and Quotes. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2000.

Mark A. Copeland on The Church Universal and Local Distinguished

The Church “Universal”                            The Church “Local”

Composed of all Christians Composed of Christians in onelocation
Began on the Day of Pentecost Begins when people join together
There is just one There are many
Enter only by being added by the Lord Enter by joining ourselves
The Lord keeps the books of membership Enrolled by human judgment
Consists of all the saved Consists of both saved and lost
Must be in this to be saved Do not have to be in this to be saved
Has no earthly organization Has earthly organization
Can’t be divided Can be divided
Death doesn’t affect membership Death does affect membership
Does not have one scriptural name May use different scriptural names

*Mark A. Copeland is a Bible teacher in Kissimmee, Fl.

An Interesting Overview of Dispensationalism by Dr. John F. Walvoord

Reflections on Dispensationalism

[Dr. John F. Walvoord served for many years as the President, Chancellor and as a Professor of Systematic Theology, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas. For many free resources by Dr. Walvoord check out: http://www.walvoord.com/%5D

One of the problems in theology today is that many people who refer to dispensationalism do not adequately understand its roots, and therefore they dismiss it without giving it due consideration.

To understand the long background of dispensationalism, I examined approximately one hundred books on systematic theology to seek to determine how they explain dispensationalism. Most of these theologies in the nineteenth century were postmillennial, and most of the ones in the twentieth century were amillennial. They represented almost every system of theology, including liberal and conservative, Calvinistic and Arminian. Relatively few were premillennial. About half of them, regardless of their theological background, recognized biblical dispensations. One of the most significant was that of Charles Hodge, outstanding Calvinistic theologian of the nineteenth century, who was postmillennial in his eschatology but who wrote that the Scriptures describe four dispensations: Adam to Abraham, Abraham to Moses, Moses to Christ, and the Gospel dispensation.[1] And Louis Berkhof, an amillenarian, wrote that the Bible has two dispensations.[2]

Dispensations Related to Progressive Revelation

In the theological works that do discuss dispensations it is evident that acknowledging the presence of dispensations is not limited to a single theological system. Instead, such acknowledgement is based on progressive revelation, the fact that God continued to reveal Himself to humankind through biblical history.

Dispensationalism is an approach to the Bible that recognizes differing moral responsibilities for people, in keeping with how much they knew about God and His ways. God’s revelation of Himself in different eras required moral responses on the part of humanity. In the Garden of Eden the only requirement for conduct was that Adam and Eve were to keep the Garden and not eat of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. With the entrance of sin, human conscience came in as the guideline for conduct. It proved to be faulty, however, and people continued to sin. Following conscience there was the Flood and with it the introduction of the concept of government and the command that murderers be executed. This, however, also ended in failure at the Tower of Babel. The introduction of the Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis 12 and 15 presented a totally new perspective, as God revealed His special plan for Israel in the future. Then those dispensations or stages of progressive revelation were followed by the Mosaic Covenant.

The Mosaic Covenant, the most extensive code of conduct to be found in the Old Testament, was given only to Israel. The nations were not judged by it. None of the nations, for example, were punished for not keeping the Sabbath. Each dispensation superseded the previous one, continuing some of the revelation and conduct requirements of the past and introducing new requirements as well as eliminating some requirements of the previous dispensation. This situation was similar to raising a child who in his early years was subject to a number of limitations but for whom some limitations, as he grew, were lifted while new ones were added.

The New Testament introduces God’s plan and purpose for the church. The numerous requirements of the Mosaic Law do not apply to the present era because the present church age is a different dispensation. For instance, while the Law required executing a man for not keeping the Sabbath, no one would extend that requirement to the present day. In dealing with the legalism present in the Galatian church Paul stated that the Law was like a tutor to bring people to Christ. Just as an adult son no longer needs a tutor, so under grace believers no longer need the Law (Gal. 3:24-25; cf. 4:1-7 on the difference between the rules for children and the rules for adults).

Areas of Confusion in Definition

In the twentieth century many strides forward have been made in interpreting the doctrines of Scripture, especially eschatology and dispensationalism. In this area of theology The Scofield Reference Bible played a major part. Written originally by C. I. Scofield in 1909, he revised it in 1917. After World War I and after Scofield’s death in 1921 The Scofield Reference Bible became an unusually popular study Bible. The Bible conference movement became prominent in this country, and Bible teachers in those conferences often recommended The Scofield Reference Bible. As a result millions of copies were sold, and the views presented in that study Bible became the views of numerous Bible institutes and many evangelicals of the twentieth century.

This situation changed after the 1930s and in the decade that followed. Many seminaries that were formerly orthodox had turned liberal. Then as their graduates were called to churches that were traditionally orthodox, clashes occurred between pastors and their congregations. If a pastor opposed the doctrinal convictions of his congregants, he would have to challenge the doctrine of inspiration, the virgin birth, and similar issues, and this would immediately cause his people to raise questions about his own theology. A number of pastors discovered that most of the people who opposed them were carrying Scofield Reference Bibles, and one of the distinctive factors of the Scofield Bible is that it is dispensational. Therefore those pastors hit on the scheme of attacking dispensationalism as a heresy. Because most people did not have clearly in mind what dispensationalism involved theologically, this tactic helped protect those pastors from questions about their own theology and it put those in the pew on the defensive.

Conservative amillenarians saw an opportunity to further their cause, and they attacked dispensationalism as a departure from the Protestant Reformation. Their motto was “Back to the Reformation” as the cure for apostasy. The Reformation, however, did not deal with the subject of dispensationalism. So these theologians went back to Augustine and his amillennial eschatology.

In the ensuing controversy many liberals attacked dispensationalism. But what they were really attacking was fundamentalism, premillennialism, pretribulationism, and the inerrancy of the Bible. In the process, liberals wrongly identified “dispensationalism” with fundamentalism.

Characteristic of the attacks on dispensationalism is that its opponents say it is heretical. [3] Their approach is often characterized by prejudice and ignorance rather than careful study of the Scriptures and of the history of dispensational thought.

One example of this characterization occurred when a woman indicated to me that in a conversation with her pastor she inadvertently mentioned that her nephew was a student at Dallas Seminary. The pastor immediately replied, “That seminary is heretical.” When she asked him why he felt that way, he answered that it was dispensational. Then she asked, “What is wrong with dispensationalism?” He replied, “I don’t know, but it’s bad.”

When amillenarian ministers are asked, “What is wrong with dispensationalism?” many of them cannot give an acceptable answer.

The widespread prejudice and ignorance of the meaning of dispensationalism was illustrated when I was asked by a prominent Christian publication to write an article on dispensational premillennialism. In my manuscript I referred to The Divine Economy, written in 1687, in which the author, Pierre Poiret (1646-1719), discussed seven dispensations.4 The editor omitted this from the manuscript, and when I protested, he said, “That is impossible because John Nelson Darby invented dispensationalism.” It would be difficult to find a statement more ignorant and more prejudicial that that.

Another work on dispensations, written by John Edwards and published in 1699, was titled “A Complete History or Survey of all the Dispensations and Methods of Religion.” [5] Also Isaac Watts (1674-1748) wrote on dispensational distinctives. [6]

A most important contribution to the discussion of dispensationalism was written by Charles C. Ryrie in 1966. In his book Dispensationalism Today [7] he answered many objections to dispensationalism. He presented the subject in such a proper biblical and historical light that for some years afterward the attacks on dispensationalism were muted. After several years, however, those who objected to dispensationalism thought it possible to ignore this work. But in 1995 he issued a revised and expanded work entitled Dispensationalism. [8] This work will undoubtedly be unsurpassed by any work on the subject for years to come. Ryrie deals directly with the question of whether dispensationalism is a heresy, and he has a lengthy section on the origin of dispensationalism. He also discusses the hermeneutics of dispensationalism, the doctrine of salvation, the doctrine of the church, eschatology, progressive dispensationalism, covenant theology, and ultradispensationalism.

Ryrie says this about the scriptural basis for dispensationalism: “The various forms of the word dispensation appear in the New Testament twenty times. The verb oikonomeō is used once in Luke 16:2 where it is translated ‘to be a steward.’ The noun oikonomos appears ten times (Luke 12:42; 16:1, 3, 8; Romans 16:23; 1 Corinthians 4:1, 2; Galatians 4:2; Titus 1:7; 1 Peter 4:10) and is usually translated ‘steward’ or ‘manager’ (but ‘treasure’ in Romans 16:23). The noun oikonomia is used nine times (Luke 16:2, 3, 4; 1 Corinthians 9:17; Ephesians 1:10; 3:2, 9; Colossians 1:25; 1 Timothy 1:4). In these instances it is translated ‘stewardship,’ ‘dispensation,’ ‘administration,’ ‘job,’ ‘commission.’ ” [9]

As Ryrie points out, there are three major dispensations in the Scriptures. “At least three dispensations (as commonly understood in dispensational teaching) are mentioned by Paul. In Ephesians 1:10 he writes of ‘an administration [dispensation, KJV] suitable to the fullness of the times,’ which is a future period here. In Ephesians 3:2, he designates the ‘stewardship [dispensation, KJV] of God’s grace,’ which was the emphasis of the content of his preaching, at that time. In Colossians 1:25-26 it is implied that another dispensation precedes the present one in which the mystery of Christ in the believer is revealed. It is important to notice that … there can be no question that the Bible uses the word dispensation exactly the same way as the dispensationalist does.” [10]

The fact that the Bible uses the word “dispensation” as a theological term only a few times is no problem. Theologians use the words “atonement” and “Trinity” even though these words do not occur in the New Testament.

Ryrie defines a dispensation as “a stewardship, an administration, oversight, or management of others’ property… . This involves responsibility, accountability, and faithfulness on the part of the steward.” [11] Dispensationalism as a system in present-day discussions is most commonly associated with and stems from premillennialism because of the emphasis of premillenarians on normal, literal, grammatical interpretation, which points to a clear distinction between Israel and the church. [12]

Biblical Dispensations

As noted earlier, only three dispensations are discussed extensively in the Scriptures—the Law, grace (church), and the kingdom (the millennium)—though others are indicated in the Scriptures. For example The Scofield Reference Bible lists seven dispensations in the footnotes and then discusses each one subsequently in later footnotes.

The seven are “Innocence (Gen. 1:28); Conscience or Moral Responsibility (Gen. 3:7); Human Government (Gen. 8:15); Promise (Gen. 12:1); Law (Ex. 19:1); Church (Acts 2:1); Kingdom (Rev. 20:4).” [13]

Wilmington, on the other hand, lists nine dispensations.

1. The dispensation of innocence (from creation of man to the fall of man);

2. The dispensation of conscience (from the fall to the flood);

3. The dispensation of civil government (from the flood to the disbursement of Babel);

4. The dispensation of promise or patriarchal rule (from Babel to Mount Sinai);

5. The dispensation of the Mosaic Law (from Mount Sinai to the upper room);

6. The dispensation of the bride of the Lamb, the Church (from the upper room to the Rapture);

7. The dispensation of the wrath of the Lamb—the tribulation (from the Rapture to the Second Coming);

8. The dispensation of the rule of the Lamb—the Millennium (from the Second Coming to the Great White Throne Judgment);

9. The dispensation of the new creation of the land—the world without end (from the Great White Throne Judgment throughout all eternity). [14]

Each dispensation includes requirements for human conduct. Some Bible students wrongly seek to apply prophecies of the future millennium to the present age. The progressive character of dispensationalism, however, means that it is wrong to bring prophecies of yet-future events and relate them to an earlier era. Nor is it proper to take elements of human conduct and responsibility from passages about Christ’s reign on earth in the millennium and apply them to today. Also a number of writers refer to passages on the Great Tribulation and its terrible disasters as if they will occur in the present dispensation of the church age. However, in the rapture the church will be taken out of the world before these events happen.

A recent development in dispensational circles is called progressive dispensationalism. [15] Advocates of this view hold that Jesus Christ is now partially fulfilling the Davidic Covenant, seated in heaven on David’s throne and ruling over His kingdom as the Messiah and King. I believe, however, that Jesus’ present ministry in heaven involves His intercessory work for believers as their great High Priest, and that His messianic rule is not occurring now but will occur in the millennium. Progressive dispensationalists do affirm, however, their belief that Christ will reign over Israel in His thousand-year rule on the earth.

One of the best summaries of dispensations is found in the doctrinal statement of Dallas Theological Seminary. [16] This states that dispensationalism is a form of stewardship or responsibility of humanity to obey God and to honor Him. Each dispensation recorded in the Bible ends in failure, thus proving that no one under any arrangement can achieve perfection or salvation. Even in the millennial kingdom, with its near-perfect circumstances, humanity will still fail.

In every dispensation salvation is by grace through faith, made possible by the death of Christ. On the one hand the dispensations have diversity of requirements for human conduct, but on the other hand salvation is always by God’s grace. Salvation is the unifying factor in Scripture.

It is most unfortunate that many people misunderstand dispensationalism. Even many of those who are dispensationalists tend to avoid using the term “dispensationalism” because it is often misunderstood. Those who claim that they are not dispensationalists are actually rejecting the wrong view of dispensationalism. For everyone is a dispensationalist—to a degree—whether he or she recognizes it or not.

1 Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (New York: Scribner’s Son, 1857), 2:373-77.

2 L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953), 293-301. Also Anthony A. Hoekema, an amillenarian who argues against dispensationalism, speaks of the Old Testament as “the period of shadows and types” and of the New Testament as “the period of fulfillment,” thereby acknowledging at least two eras of human history (The Bible and the Future [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979], 195).

3 For example the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States stated that dispensationalism is “evil and subversive” (A Digest of the Acts and Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States 1861-1965 [Atlanta: Office of the General Assembly, 1966], 50; see also 45-49). While this accusation was made several decades ago, that general attitude still prevails among many covenant theologians.

4 Pierre Poiret, The Divine Economy, 7 vols. (1687; reprint, London: R. Bonwicke, 1713). The seven dispensations he taught are Creation to the Deluge, the Deluge to Moses, Moses to the Prophets, the Prophets to Christ, Manhood and Old Age, the Christian Era, and Renovation of All Things.

5 John Edwards, A Compleat History or Survey of All the Dispensations and Methods of Religion, 2 vols. (n. p.: Daniel Brown, 1699).

6 Isaac Watts, The Works of the Reverend and Learned Isaac Waats (Leeds, UK: Edward Bainer, 1800), 1:555-65; 2:626-60. Both Edwards and Watts discussed six dispensations: Innocency, Adamical, Noahical, Abrahamical, Mosaical, and Christian.

7 Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today (Chicago: Moody, 1966).

8 Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism (Chicago: Moody, 1995).

9 Ibid., 25.

10 Ibid., 27 (italics his).

11 Ibid., 28.

12 However, not all premillenarians accept dispensationalism as a system.

13 C. I. Scofield, ed., The New Scofield Reference Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), 3. See also Stanley D. Toussaint, “A Biblical Defense of Dispensationalism,” in Walvoord: A Tribute, ed. Donald K. Campbell (Chicago: Moody, 1982), 81-91; and Ryrie, Dispensationalism, 51-57.

14 H. L. Wilmington, Book of Bible Lists (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1987).

15 Craig A. Blaising and Darrell L. Bock, eds., Dispensationalism, Israel and the Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992); Craig A. Blaising and Darrell L. Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1993); and Robert L. Saucy, The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993).

16 We Believe: Doctrinal Statement of Dallas Theological Seminary (Dallas: Dallas Theological Seminary, n.d.), Article V.

An Excellent Overview of World Missions by Hampton Keathley IV

Missions Outline (adapted from hamptonk@bible.org)

Introduction

Over 7 billion people on earth

  • 60% in Asia
  • 15% in Europe
  • 
12% in Africa
  • 8% in Latin America
  • 5% in America – but we (Americans) consume 60% of the world’s goods.

Missions is not an elective course—a tack on. It is the heartbeat of the church. If it weren’t for missions, God might as well come now. It is the main purpose of the church.

The Great Commandment 
(Matthew 22:34-40)

Matthew 22:34-40 But when the Pharisees heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence, they gathered themselves together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 “This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” (NASB)

The Saducees were “sad you see” because they didn’t believe in the resurrection.

LOVE:

  • For God
  • 
For our Neigbor

Our society twists this. You need to love yourself or you can’t love your neighbor. Our society starts with self. We are supposed to start with God.

The Great Commission 
(Matthew 28:19-20)

Matthew 28:19-20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

  • Disciple Go is a command but the heart of the commission is to make disciples.
  • Baptizing – rooting and grounding them
  • Teaching – what? – to observe all things. The emphasis on observing.

Verse 20 ends with the fact that we will have help. Christ is with us.

Myths of Missions

1. Myth of the Closed door – there are no closed doors to God

2. Nationalism – This is true. Most of the world is independent. Prior to WWII 99.5% of the world was under Western Domination. By 1969 99.5% of the world was independent.

3. Indigenous churches are self-sufficient – No church should really be self-sufficient. The universal church should help take care of all its members.

4. The hungry heart – the heart is deceitful and loves its sin everywhere.

5. The specialist – you need to be a doctor or a pilot to go to missionfield

6. The unfulfilled life – people who go to the mission field couldn’t find anything better in the real world.

How Can We Be 
True World Christians?

1. We need information about the rest of the world

2. That should lead to intercession.

3. Intercession will lead to involvement.

4. That leads to more interest.

5. Then you will want more information.

Acts 2:42-45 And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 And everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. 44 And all those who had believed were together, and had all things in common; 45 and they began selling their property and possessions, and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. (NASB)

We have already seen that the church should love and disciple from Matt 22:34 and 28:19. Here we see a model that expands on these principles.

  • Worship
  • Instruction
  • Fellowship
  • Evangelism

The wife acronym is helpful for remembering what the church should be doing, but we can divide these four things into two areas

  • Love = Worship and Fellowship – Love for God and love for Neighbor
  • Discipleship = Evangelism and Instruction

Evangelism is essential. What if you went to a football game and the players never left the huddle. That’s what many churches are like. We are too comfortable and self-satisfied. We never hear the word “self-sacrifice.”

What is church planting?

Drawing together a group of believers into a corporate community for joint worship, mutual fellowship, continuing training and constant outreach.

Missions – the sending forth of authorized persons (those designed by God, empowered by the H.S. and sent by the church) beyond the borders of the church and the immediate gospel influence (this includes geographical and social or economic influence) to proclaim the gospel of J.C. to win converts and to establish functioning, multiplying local congregations. (Peters p. 11)

  • Purpose in Progress
  • God’s Concern = mission
  • God’s Communication = missions

Missions in the Old Testament 
5-12-5-5-12

Gen 11: 2 sins

  • Pride
  • Disobedience – “lest we be scattered over the face of the earth. Man has never wanted to go out into the unknown.

Gen 12:1-3

With context of 11: in mind we have Abraham’s call.

INDIVIDUAL

ASPECT

NATIONAL

ASPECT

INTERNATIONAL ASPECT

LAND

NATION

BLESSING

Gen 13

Gen 15

Gen 17

Palestinian

Davidic

New

Deut 30:3-5

2Sam 7:11-16

Jer 31:31-40

Poetry

  • Ps 2:
  • A Rebellious World – 1-3 — look around
  • A Righteous God 4-6 — look above
  • A Redeeming King 7-12 — look ahead

Retribution or refuge

  • vv. 1-5 = Praise = God’s Goodness to the earth
  • vv. 6-12 = Ponder = God’s Greatness over the eath
  • v. 13 = Pursue = God’s Guidance for the earth
  • A Prayer for God’s grace
, goodness & glory
  • With a Purpose for World redemption
World reverence
World rejoicing
  • Unto Praise for God’s person
, provision,
 & preeminence
  • Our Worship vv. 1-6 = Sing to the Lord because of:
  • who = all the earth
  • what = bless His name
  • when = from day to day
  • where = among the nations
  • why = for God is great
  • Our Witness vv. 7-10 = Ascribe to the Lord:
  • Say He reigns
  • among the nations
  • among the world
  • among the people
  • Our Wonder vv, 11-13
  • Say He rules:
  • the earth
  • the world
  • the peoples
 Prophets
  • Isaiah
  • Chapters 1-39 
= God’s Condemnation
  • Chapters 40-66
 = God’s Consolation
  • OT 
39 books
  • NT 
27 books

Our World 5:8-23

Woe – Materialism: possessions v 8-10

  • “Get all you can, can all you get , sit on the can”
 One beg reason we don’t want to go to missions is we don’t want to give up our stuff.

Woe – Hedonism: pleasure v 11-17

  • Philosophy that “pleasure is the chief end of man”

Woe – Humanism: presumption vs 18-19

  • Pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps – “I don’t need God. I’m doing fine without Him.”

Woe – Relativism: perversion v 20

  • No absolutes – who’s to say what’s right or wrong – “homosexuality is just an alternate lifestyle”

Woe – Intellectualism: pride v21

Woe – Imperialism: persecution v 22-23

  • What is the Solution to our world’s poblems?

Look up! In Isa 6:1 Isaiah looked up.

Our Worship 6:1-4

Our Witness 6:5-8
God’s preeminence v1 Conviction v5
God’s purity v2-3 Cleansing v6-7
God’s power v4 Commission v8

Verse 5: Isaiah had been saying woe is the world around him, but when he sees God, he says Woe is me!. I myself am awful.

  • Jonah

Chapter 1: Jonah Runs = God Chastens

Chapter 2: Jonah Prays = God Cleanses

Chapter 3: Jonah Preaches = God Converts

Chapter 4: Jonah Pouts = God Cares

1. We need to find our place in the world

2. We need to pray for the world

3. We need to proclaim to the world

4. We need to care for the world

Missions in the New Testament

History = 5 Gospels and Acts

Letters = 21 Letters

Prophecy = 1 Revelation

At the end of each gospel the writer gives us a homework assignment:

Emphasis is on scripture over experience – not like today. Beware of any movement that stresses experience over the Scriptures.

“You are witnesses” – good or bad, you are it.

THE SOURCE

THE CONTENT

THE AGENTS

God’s Word

Christ’s Work

Our Witness

God prophesied Salvation

Christ Procured Salvation

We Proclaim Salvation

Disciples had fear – Christ met needs – peace

Communion with Christ = Joy

He had the peace treaty in his hands – nail scars

They were sent but they had to have the Spirit before they could accomplish their mission. was this the filling of the HS. Probably not since He filled them in Acts 2: This was probably similar to Jn

Peace of Christ

Power of the Spirit

Pardon of God

v 19-21

v 22

v 23

We Rest in Him

We Rely on Him

We Reach Out for Him

GREAT COMMISSION PASSAGES

MATT

MARK

LUKE

JOHN
Make Disciples Preach the Gospel You are my Wtnesses So Send I You
All the Nations All the World All Nations The World Jn 3:16
Purpose Preaching People Process
We are Disciples Heralds Witnesses Ambassadors
Imperative Imperative Indicative Indicative

ACTS 
THE CHURCH

STARTS

SCATTERS

SENDS

1-7

8-12

13-28
  • Cross cultural expansion is emphasis in acts
  • Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and uttermost part of the earth
  • Romans 10:14f

Four questions and the bottom line is that we need senders. Without senders, no one can go. There are plenty of people who are willing to go but raising support kills many endeavors.

(1) Can we reach the world in this generation? 2 Tim 2:1f is foundational. Vs 2 says faithfulness is only requirement.

Value of multiplication: 1 – 2 – 4 – 8 – 16 – 32 – 64 – 128 – 256 – 512 – 1024 – etc at end of 33 years we could have reached 9 billion

(2) Are the heathen lost?

See “Untold Billions: are they really lost.” Ron Blue, Bib Sac

Questions involved:

  • Is God Just?
  • Character of GodTheology Proper

(3) Is Christ the only way?

Sufficiency of Christ—Christology

(4) Did Christ have to die?

  • Necessity of the cross—Sotieriology
  • Is not evil relative? Judgment of sin—Amartiology
  • Is Man inherently sinful? Depravity of man—Anthropology
  • Is the church God’s unique witness? Role of the church—Ecclessiology
  • Is there a future reckoning?—Eschatology

God has revealed himself in creation and conscience.

What is man’s response to the Glory of God?

  • No praise. Notice: If you do nothing you will be moving.
    • No thanks—away from God
      • Vain thought:
        • Darkened heart—Dark in the heart – Dead in the head.
          • Pride
          • Foolish
          • Idolatry

Sacrificing chickens to a rock is not reaching out to God. It is the last stage in rejection of God.

Man has suppressed the truth. What does God do? He lets them go. He gives them over to their lusts and passions and depraved mind. These three areas correspond and are contrasted with the three areas we should love God with – our heart and soul and mind.

History of missions

  • Europe
  • Paul and Barnabas—Antioch
  • Patrick—Ireland
  • Augustine—England
  • Boniface—Germany
  • Asia
  • Francis Xavier—Japan
  • William Carey—India
  • Adoniram Judson—Burma
  • Hudson Taylor—China
  • Africa
  • Robert Moffat—South Africa
  • David Livingstone—Congo
  • Mary Slessor—Nigeria
  • C.T. Studd—Belgian Congo
  • Latin America
  • Bartolome De Las Casas
  • Cam Townsend—Guatemala – started Wycliffe Bible Translators
  • Jim Elliot—Equador (martyred)
  • Chet Bitterman—Columbia – martyred

Carey starts first sweep – Pioneer – coastal emphasis – 1800-1900

Taylor starts 2nd sweep – Inland emphasis – 1900’s

Townsend starts 3rd sweep – Hidden Peoples 1934 ->

Current Statistics about the Unfinished Task of World Evangelism

The following statistics represent some of the challenges facing the church in the unfinished task of world evangelism (Ronnie Floyd, Our Last Great Hope (Thomas Nelson, 2011):

As of April 2012, there were approximately 7 billion people on Earth. Approximately 750 million (or about 11 percent) of those are willing to claim Jesus as personal Lord and Savior.

At present, just over 50 percent of the world’s population (or 3.5 billion people) have not heard the gospel and most of them do not have a realistic opportunity to hear the gospel. Here’s another way to look at the challenge of world evangelism:

Of the 11,646 distinct people groups on the planet, 6,734 people groups (roughly 60 percent) contain between zero and two percent evangelical Christians. Many of these 6,734 people groups have no churches, no Bibles, no Christian literature, and no mission agencies who are seeking to share the gospel with them.

If evangelical missions worldwide were able to send one missionary to each group of 5000 people (of the 3.5 billion) we would need 700,000 additional missionaries!

Evan Howard on How To Pray The Lord’s Prayer

Chart on Praying the Lord’s Prayer: Matthew 6:9-13

This chart outlines the main types of prayer as they are presented in the Lord’s Prayer. Use this outline to guide you through a time of prayer using these main types.

VERSE                                    HOW TO PRAY                        TYPE OF PRAYER

Our Father in heaven,hallowed be your name. Telling God how great He is and How much He means to you. Worship/Adoration and thanksgiving
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Giving God total control over all the areas in your (or another’s) life Submission, Surrender
Give us this day our daily bread, Asking God to provide for today’s needs. Petition, intercession
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Admitting your sin to God and asking for forgiveness; telling God how you have been sinned against and forgiving those who have hurt you. Confession
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Asking God to give you (or another) strength over particular areas of evil to which you (or another) fall prey. Supplication, deliverance

Chart adapted from “List A” in the very helpful book on prayer by Evan B. Howard. Praying The Scriptures: A Field Guide for Your Spiritual Journey. Downers Grove: IL.: IVP, 1999. I have changed the Scriptures used in the original chart to the ESV.

About the Author: Evan Howard is the director of the Spirituality Shoppe: An Evangelical Center for the Study of Christian Spirituality, based in Montrose, Colorado. He has served as a pastor at two churches and as an adjunct faculty member at Whitworth College. He is also the author of Brazos Introduction to Christian Spirituality & Affirming the Touch of God.

Warren W. Wiersbe on the Joys of Reading

Warren Wiersbe gives three reasons why he enjoys reading:

“First, there’s the joy of meeting people I’ve always wanted to meet. If it were announced that Hudson Taylor or Charles Spurgeon or Campbell Morgan was speaking at a particular church, Christians from all over the world would show up. But we forget that when we open up a book by Hudson Taylor, for example, that man is speaking to us.

“Another joy is visiting great periods of history. I would like to have lived in London from 1835 to about 1895, the Victorian era.… I could have traveled from place to place, hearing some of the greatest people who ever walked the face of God’s earth—F. B. Meyer, D. L. Moody, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Joseph Parker, Alexander Maclaren …

“A third joy I have in reading is grappling with great issues.… Everyone is a philosopher because everyone has some view of life.”

*Dr. Warren W. Wiersbe has been a pastor for many years, a teacher on the Back to the Bible Broadcast, and is best known as the author of over 100 practical books on the Christian life – most notably the “Be” Series of books covering the entire span of the Bible expositionally.

 

Great Investing Advice From Two Very Wealthy Men

The Importance of Diversification

Just a few years ago I was at a very expensive leadership seminar for five full days with a young Christian entrepreneur: he was a multi-millionaire who had brought the seven presidents of his seven companies for the training. I was impressed with the owner’s humility, wisdom, and his presidents. To look at this man – one would think he was just a regular guy. However, more than his entrepreneurial spirit and obvious business success I was amazed that his ultimate goal in life was to give over one billion-dollars to world-wide missions for the spreading of the gospel! During one of the lunch breaks I asked him what his philosophy of investing was – here was his reply:

Solomon spoke about diversifying into seven areas. This is in Eccl 2:4-8. He was the wisest man that ever lived and also the richest. That is one reason why I have been working so diligently to diversify into at least seven different businesses, and not just be in one industry.

Solomon did take his own advice. Here are a few of his businesses:

1) trucking (hence all the camels)

2) textiles ( hence all the sheep)

3) import-export (hence all the trade routes)

4) retail stores (hence the import-export)

5) agriculture

6) real estate

7) construction

I’m sure, many, many more businesses. So, how can the average person diversify???

1) real estate (own your home)

2) cash

3) stocks and bonds

4) metals (gold and silver coins)

5) car(s)

6 a business?? perhaps based on a hobby??

7) life insurance or annuity

Of course laying up treasures in heaven gives the best returns. If you can consistently get 10% a year for a few years, you are a genius. If you send it on ahead, you’ll get 1,000% a year, for FOREVER!

Tim Keller and David Powlison’s Questions For Pastoral Self-Evaluation

Pastor’s Self-Evaluation Questionnaire 

“Pay close attention both to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things; for as you do this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.” – 1 Timothy 4:16

The questions that follow help you to pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching. The purpose is to bless you and those you seek to love and serve. For the vast majority of readers, it will help you set a positive, personal agenda for growth as God’s instrument. The Great Shepherd of the sheep will by His grace continue to develop you in His image. Conduct your self-evaluation in the light of His love.

Perhaps for a few readers it will prove to be a pass-fail test for your current ministry. Perhaps God has not given you certain gifts. Perhaps you are walking in some disqualifying pattern of sin. Even in these cases the questionnaire serves a positive purpose. The Lord has another place for those gifts that He has given you. The Lord has a way of repentance and renewal for sins that sabotage pastoral integrity and effectiveness. Remember the grace of the gospel.

So set your heart on Christ, on His gospel of mercy, on His high call, on His abounding riches of grace, on His honor in your life and His church. Here are some suggestions on how to profit from this study.

Read the questions carefully. The questions are posed first, followed by work-sheets. The questions range widely over the pastor’s role. If you are not a pastor, you can still profit. Ignore the questions that do not apply to your situation.

Think hard. Answer each question honestly after taking time to ponder. Set aside a day or several evenings to reflect on your life and ministry. Wherever possible give concrete examples of fruitfulness or failure, of growth or struggle.

Pray. Pray for wisdom to know God and yourself better. Pray for wisdom to serve God more effectively. Pray to know yourself before the eyes of the God who is both light and love.

Seek counsel from others. Many of the questions are difficult to answer about yourself. This self-evaluation questionnaire will be most useful when you combine it with feedback from others. Ask other leaders, friends, spouse, coworkers on a ministry team, and so forth.

Plan. The work-sheets will guide you in practical planning.

Acknowledge that others have gifts that complement yours. The second half of the questionnaire deals with pastoral skills. You may have limitations which God covers by providing others on the pastoral team with complementary gifts. In acknowledging personal weaknesses, ask yourself whether or not your pastoral team as a whole is covering all the bases.

Remember, the goal of this self-evaluation is to guide you in the path of growing holiness and growing pastoral skill. The questions are divided into these two major sections: personal holiness and pastoral skills. Effective ministers demonstrate holiness by humility, love, integrity and spirituality. Effective ministers are skilled in nurture, communication, leadership and mission.

Under each category you will find several questions. Notice that each question is two-sided. This captures that you fail either by omission or by commission. For example, biblical love is neither careless detachment from others nor obsession with others. You will likely find that you tend towards one side of each question. Let the questions stimulate you to ask further questions. They are not exhaustive. Some will apply to you; some won’t.

Part I. Personal Qualifications of Effective Ministers: Holiness

A. Humility

1. Do you acknowledge your limitations and needs out of confidence in Christ’s gracious power?

Are you honest enough? Do you demonstrate a willingness to admit your limits, mistakes, sins and weaknesses? Are you defensive, guarded, hypersensitive? Do you model that the Christian life is the open life? Do you demonstrate that the Christian life is a work in process rather than a completed product? Do you deal forthrightly with the common temptations you face: anger, anxiety, escapism, love of pleasure, self-love, materialism, perfectionism, and the like?

Are you too open? Do you wear your heart on your sleeve, indulging and wallowing in your limits, mistakes, sins and weaknesses? Are you morbidly or ‘exhibitionistically’ confessional? Or have you learned to speak of your weaknesses in ways that (1) point to your confidence in Christ, (2) genuinely seek help from people who can help, and (3) edify others?

2. Do you demonstrate a flexible spirit out of confidence in God’s control over all things, God’s authority over you, and God’s presence with you?

Are you flexible enough? Do you adapt faithfully, flexibly and creatively to the unexpected? Do you value and encourage the ideas and gifts of others? Do you insist on your own way, whether forcefully or through subtle manipulation? Do you exemplify confidence in the sovereign control of God down to the details of life? Are you caught up in the various aggressions and fears produced by a drive to ensure your own control?

Are you willing to try things experimentally and then reevaluate and make changes? Are you evidently a learner?

Are you too flexible? Do you bend too much? Do you blow in the wind of others’ opinions and get overwhelmed by people’s demands and agendas? Do you compromise, under-assert, seek to please, fail to push things that need to be pushed? Do you let people or circumstances control you rather than the Lord?

B. Love

1. Do you have a positive approach to people because of confidence in the power and hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Do you give grace to others? Do you love and encourage persons, even when under stress or in the face of an attack? Do you exhibit core biblical virtues: love for enemies, gentleness with opponents, patience with people and circumstances when undergoing trial or suffering? Are you able to confront the failings of others—to discipline your children, to admonish wanderers, to conduct church discipline—in a way that is not punitive, irritable, or censorious but breathes the invitations of God’s grace? Can you say hard things lovingly? Is your “speaking the truth” harsh, opinionated, idiosyncratic? Do you create problems by making mountains out of molehills? Do you contribute to destructive conflict or to peacemaking?

Are you too tolerant? Are you naively optimistic about people? Do you massage people’s egos with praise and “unconditional positive regard”? Is your “love” limp and truthless? Do you whitewash or minimize problems rather than tackle them? Because of biblical love are you willing to enter into constructive conflict? Are you a peace-lover and conflict-avoider rather than a peacemaker?

2. Do you show a servant’s heart to people because you are first and foremost a servant of the Lord?

Do you serve willingly? Do you serve yourself or others primarily? Do you truly serve the well-being of others and shepherd them under the Lord? Do you strive for personal glory either aggressively (compulsively driven “on an ego trip”) or passively (preoccupied with your “low self-esteem”)? Do you manifest the combination of forcefulness and sensitivity, commitment and flexibility, which characterizes servants of the Lord’s glory? Do you lord it over other people? Do you resist or avoid serving and loving others?

Do you serve compulsively? Do you serve other people slavishly, kowtowing to their demands, expectations, and whims? Do you let others lord it over you? Are you confused about what it means to serve and love others? Do you know how to say “No” realistically, firmly and graciously? Do you regularly rest and lay aside your work?

C. Integrity

1. Are you responsible to God first and foremost?

Are you irresponsible? Do you follow through on convictions and commitments? Do you speak the truth firmly, confidently, faithfully? Do you “trim” the truth or waffle on your commitments because of convenience or social pressures? Do you fail to demand of yourself and others things that God demands? Do you follow your impulses, moods, and feelings? Are you walking in the grip of a sin: e.g., greed, lust, outbursts of anger, fear of man, drunkenness, pride?

Are you overly demanding? Do you behave in a rigid manner? Do you sledgehammer people because of your commitment to principle? Are you legalistic in your commitments and nit-picking in your convictions? Do you major in minors? Do you make demands of yourself and others which God does not make?

2. Do you demonstrate a disciplined lifestyle under the Lordship of Jesus?

Are you undisciplined? Is your visible life and behavior disciplined, consistent and attractive? Do you manifest the joy, humility, and winsomeness of wisdom and holiness? Would people want to imitate what they see of your faith, your faithfulness, your character? What would people see if they could tag along with you for a week? Do you work diligently or are you lazy?

Are you too rigid? Are you too disciplined, organized, “perfect” on the outside? Does your visible example actually discourage or intimidate people? Are you in effect playing the role of “pastor” or “mature Christian”? Is your visible discipline a mask for hypocrisy, a cover for ignorance of yourself or a denial of a deviant inner life? Are you humbled by conscious awareness that you fight the common besetting temptations of every human heart: pride, fear of man, attachment to money, sexual lust, preoccupation with your own performance, control, judgmentalism, love of various pleasures, and the like? Do you have an active sense of humor? Do you take time to rest or are you consumed with anxious toil?

3. Are your family commitments a proper priority under the Lord?

Do you give yourself to your family? Are you over-committed to your ministry and under-committed to your family? Do you love your family in such a way that they willingly become committed to your ministry and really stand with and behind you? Are they being sacrificed to “ministry”? Are they being dragged along behind you? Do you give to them significantly, substantially, willingly?

Are you over-involved in your family? Are you over-committed to your family so that they provide an improper refuge, distraction and excuse to avoid ministry? Is family life an excuse for selfishness?

D. Spirituality

1. Do you demonstrate personal piety and vigor in your relationship with God?

Is your piety genuine? Is your communion with God rich and growing? Is your personal prayer life both spontaneous and disciplined or are you mostly a public pray-er? Do you apply the Bible searchingly and encouragingly to yourself or only to your hearers? Do you praise, enjoy and thank God with heartfelt integrity? Do you know God, rely on God, seek God, praise God genuinely? What does Christ mean in your life on a day-in, day-out basis? Are you significantly prayer-less, Bible-less, praise-less, God-less, Christ-less?

Are you ‘pietistic’? Do you escape into pious clichés and misuse the spiritual disciplines? Do you use “I’ll pray about it” or “I need to study the Bible” in order to avoid problems for which you feel inadequate? Do you pray too much (Matthew 6:7) or self-centeredly (James 4:3) because you do not know God very well? Is your Bible, praise and prayer life a hypocritical diversion in a life far from God?

2. Do you demonstrate faithfulness to the Bible and sound doctrines?

Are you biblically and theologically careful? Are you orthodox, faithful to the whole counsel of God? Do you have clear, definite, and thought-out biblical positions on the central issues of life? Do you have theological quirks or hobby-horses which upset the balance of truth? Do you articulate core biblical truth clearly and consistently, with a working feel for its personal and pastoral application? Are you ignorant? Fuzzy? In error? Unbalanced?

Are you a theological nit-picker? Are your theological convictions abstract, theoretical, and scholastic? Are you narrowly dogmatic, combative, critical, reductionistic, overly precise in your interpretations and applications of Scripture? Are you simplistic or superficial in your understanding of contemporary life and of human nature? Do you recognize the broad range of questions on which Scripture bears? Do you recognize the many variables which influence the application of Scripture to particular situations?

Part II. Functional Qualifications of Effective Ministers: Pastoral Skill

A. Nurture

1. Do you show involved caring that comes from genuine love in Christ for your brothers and sisters?

Do you involve yourself with the needs of others? Do you keep people at a distance? Are you able to develop relationships of honesty and trust through which you can comfort and challenge persons? Are you approachable? Do you create frequent conflict? Do you approach people warmly? Do you communicate care for people in ways they can sense?

Do you become overly absorbed in people? Do you become overly involved with people, caring too much because of a desire to be liked or a savior-complex or a fear of failure? Do you seek relationships as an end in themselves rather than as a component of pastoring people unto godliness?

2. Do you counsel people the Lord’s way?

Do you counsel biblically? Are you skilled in helping people respond to and solve personal problems using biblical principles? Do you counsel biblically both informally and formally? Do you use unbiblical conceptual categories and methods? Is what you say in your office congruent both with what you say in the pulpit and with how you yourself live? Do you get involved constructively with troubled people, or do you disdain them, refer them, avoid them? Are individuals encouraged in godliness, amid their sufferings and sins, through your personal ministry?

Do you go overboard on counseling? Do you become overly centered on problem people and focus on one-on-one remedial counseling to the detriment of more positive, preventive, building-up and corporate aspects of the ministry? Do you tend to turn the church into a counseling center or therapy group?

3. Do you discipline others into maturity in Christ and use of their gifts?

Do you help others productively serve the Lord? Do you demonstrate skills in nurturing growth in grace in individuals and in developing their gifts? Does your ministry have a positive, equipping thrust to it? Do you develop leaders and team ministries?

Do you focus too much on activism and productivity? Does your focus on gifts and discipleship have an elitist flavor? Are Christians with minimal gifts and energies neglected? Are there certain kinds of gifts which you recognize and encourage to the neglect of other kinds of gifts? Do you tend to move only with the movers?

4. Do you give yourself to discipline and to patrolling the boundaries of the church which God bought with His own blood?

Do you protect Christ’s honor in the church? Are you committed to church discipline? Are you able to confront winsomely and persistently? Do you recognize the limits of the edification ministries of counseling, care and discipling? Do you stand courageously against real errors and falsehoods which encroach into the body of Christ that you shepherd? Are you realistic that the ministry is a savor both of life and death? Do you try to be so positive that you cannot be properly and biblically negative?

Are you over-absorbed in border patrol? Do you demonstrate a nit-picking, sectarian, vigilante spirit? Are you uncompassionate of people’s failings, negativistic rather than upbuilding? Do you create in others a fear of failure and a fear of being found wrong, rather than creating love for ongoing growth in the Lord and love for ever-deepening truth?

B. Communication

1. Do you preach the whole counsel of God?

Are you preaching and teaching the Word of God? Are you skillful in expounding the Word of God publicly so that people are convicted, encouraged, and edified? Do you use the pulpit effectively? Do you downplay the importance of the pulpit and teaching in your attitudes, practice, and theory of ministry? Is what you say in the pulpit congruent both with what you say in your office and with how you yourself live? Do you take adequate time and work hard at preparation, or are you casual and presumptuous?

Are you overly absorbed in your pulpit? Are you overly concerned with pulpit ministry to the detriment of other aspects of pastoral care? Does pride puff you up or does the fear of men tie you in knots? Do you envision yourself as a “pulpiteer,” to the harm of reaching people where they live? Do you take too much time to prepare for public ministry because of perfectionism, self-trust, or fear?

2. Do you provide education for God’s many kinds of people?

Do you educate all? Are you skilled in identifying Christian Education needs and in helping people learn? Does your philosophy of Christian Education reach all age groups and all different kinds of needs? Is biblical and doctrinal knowledge undervalued? Do you tend to ignore, despise, or belittle the educational needs of certain kinds of people? Does your approach to Christian Education effectively combine truth and practice?

Do you overeducate? Do you tend to turn your church into a school? Is education and factual or doctrinal knowledge overvalued in comparison with other aspects of the Christian life? Is the teacher-pupil role the dominant one in the church or only one role among many?

3. Do you lead others to worship the Lord?

Do you lead others to worship God in truth? Do you lead people into the presence of God? Is your worship perfunctory and rote? Do you yourself worship God as you lead, or does worship become a performance and task? Do you undervalue worship, viewing it only as a glorified warm-up for the message?

Are you overly absorbed in worship? Do you over-emphasize the “worship experience” to the detriment of truth and the other aspects of church life? Are you overly subjective, gauging the Christian life by emotions and sentiment? Do you use words, music, and staging to manipulate experience? Is God at the center of your worship or do you worship the worship?

C. Leadership

1. Do you lead God’s people into effective work together?

Do you lead groups of people well? Do you help groups develop a biblical vision, and do you motivate them towards biblical goals? Are you confused about what the goals of groups should be? Are you overly absorbed either in personal one-on-one work with people or in impersonal programs and public ministry? Do you function constructively in groups, or do you hamper and divert groups from achieving God’s ends? Do you value groups and encourage them to take on significant responsibilities?

Are you overly absorbed in groups? Do you tend to see groups, committees, and task forces as a panacea or a substitute for other aspects of ministry? Does a task orientation sabotage other biblical goals such as prayer, worship, caring, and counseling?

2. Do you administer well, creating a church that is wise in its stewardship?

Are you a good administrator? Are you skilled in using time, money, and people efficiently to achieve biblical goals in the church? Do you neglect or despise administration?

Are you overly absorbed in administration? Do you tend to over-administer or retreat to administrative tasks because they are easier or are the squeaky wheel?

3. Do you mediate fellowship among God’s people?

Do you help people come together? Are you skilled in stimulating the congregation to mutual ministry in love? Does your ministry create one-anothering opportunities and activities among God’s people? Do you enhance a family atmosphere in the church? Are you able to teach people how to make significant friendships through your teaching, manner, and example?

Are you overly absorbed with the church’s social life? Are you so oriented towards “fellowship and family feeling” that the church’s fellowship with God and orientation to mission are lost?

4. Do you create cooperative and team ministry within the church and between churches that honor Christ?

Are you a team player? Do you work well as part of a ministry or pastoral team, or do you always insist on leading (in overt or covert ways)? Do you tend to stake out turf? Is your leadership based on true biblical wisdom or on personal drive, clerical status, and political savvy? Do you build unity and mutual respect among different parts of the body of Christ? Can you cooperate with other evangelical churches and pastors, or do you have sectarian instincts? Are you committed in practical ways to see the work of the local congregation as part of the larger work of Christ? Are you too independent and not enough of a “churchman”?

Do you allow the team to shield you from the front lines of ministry? Do you shirk leadership responsibilities out of diffidence or laziness and seek to embed yourself safely within a niche? Do you put your attention too much into the work of presbyteries, synods, general assemblies, conferences, associations, conventions, ministeriums, school boards and the like? Are you a politician and too much a “churchman” rather than a pastor?

D. Mission

1. Do you evangelize those outside of Jesus Christ?

Are you active in evangelism? Are you skilled both in effectively sharing the gospel and in leading the church in outreach? Are you committed in theory and personal practice to evangelize the lost? Do you believe with all your heart that people without Christ remain under the wrath of God? Do you neglect evangelism out of ignorance, love of comfort, fear, prejudice, bad experiences? Do you lead your people to support worldwide missionary efforts?

Are you overly committed to evangelism? Do you overemphasize evangelism or one evangelistic technique to the detriment of the church’s overall ministry? Do you create ministry activists rather than godly people? Do you play a numbers game with evangelism? Do your evangelistic methods hold the message of salvation in Christ in proper balance with God’s sovereignty in grace and with the call for us to demonstrate genuine love for each other and the lost? Are missionaries idolized as a higher species of Christian?

2. Do you show social concern for the many needs of people that God desires to address?

Do you care for the whole person? Are you skilled in applying the resources of the church to the social and material needs of mankind? Do you value diaconal work and the mercy gifts? Do you believe that the gospel addresses the whole man, or do you drift towards a gospel that is a bare verbal message? Do you care in practical ways for justice, or do you tacitly accept the status quo? Can you identify the social needs of your community and mobilize effective modes of addressing these needs?

Are you overly involved in social needs? Do you overemphasize social concerns and drift towards a “social gospel”? Do you ride the hobby-horse or one particular point of view or one particular social policy issue? Do you tend to view people through the eyes of politics, economics or sociology rather than through the eyes of the God of the Bible?

 Application Work Sheet

Part I. Personal Qualifications of Effective Ministers: Holiness

A. Humility

1. Do you acknowledge your limitations and needs out of confidence in Christ’s gracious power?

2. Do you demonstrate a flexible spirit out of confidence in God’s control over all things, God’s authority over you, and God’s presence with you?

B. Love

1. Do you have a positive approach to people because of confidence in the power and hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

2. Do you show a servant’s heart to people because you are first and foremost a servant of the Lord?

C. Integrity

1. Are you responsible to God first and foremost?

2. Do you demonstrate a disciplined lifestyle under the Lordship of Jesus?

3. Are your family commitments a proper priority under the Lord?

D. Spirituality

1. Do you demonstrate personal piety and vigor in your relationship with God?

2. Do you demonstrate faithfulness to the Bible and sound doctrine?

Part II: Functional Qualifications of Effective Ministers: Pastoral Skill

A. Nurture

1. Do you show involved caring that comes from genuine love in Christ for your brothers and sisters?

2. Do you counsel people the Lord’s way?

3. Do you disciple others into maturity in Christ and use of their gifts?

4. Do you give yourself to discipline and to patrolling the boundaries of the church which God bought with His own blood?

B. Communication

1. Do you preach the whole counsel of God?

2. Do you provide education for God’s many kinds of people?

3. Do you lead others to worship the Lord?

C. Leadership

1. Do you lead people into effective work together?

2. Do you administer well, creating a church that is wise in its stewardship?

3. Do you mediate fellowship among God’s people?

4. Do you create cooperative and team ministry within the church and between churches that honor Christ?

D. Mission

1. Do you evangelize those outside of Jesus Christ?

2. Do you show social concern for the many needs of people whom God desires to address?

You have looked at yourself, hopefully through God’s eyes. Now work with what you have seen.

If you could change in one area in the next year, which would it be? Where do you most need to mature in wisdom? What changes in you would bring the greatest glory to God and greatest blessing to other people?

Confess your sins and failings to God. Jesus Christ is your faithful high priest and shepherd. He is the Pastor of pastors. “Come with confidence to the throne of His grace that you may receive mercy and grace to help you in your time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). Believe it and do it. The Lord’s strength is made perfect in your weakness.

Now what must you do? Prayerfully set goals. How will you become a more godly person and pastor? Are there people you must ask to pray for you and hold you accountable? Are there Bible passages or books you must study? Are there plans you must make? Do you need advice from a wise Christian about how to go about changing?

About the Authors: Dr. Tim Keller is the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. He is the author of numerous helpful books including: The Prodigal God; Counterfeit Gods; The Meaning of Marriage; The Reason for God & Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City. Dr. David Powlison is the editor of The Journal of Biblical Counseling and served for many years as a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary. David is currently faculty member at CCEF and a counselor with over thirty years of experience. He has written many counseling articles, booklets, and books including Seeing with New Eyes; Speaking Truth in Love; and Power Encounters.

Two sources in which these evaluation questions have appeared are The Journal of Biblical Counseling, Vol. XII, No. 1, Fall 1993 & The Appendix in Curtis C. Thomas. Practical Wisdom for Pastors: Words of Encouragement and Counsel for a Lifetime of Ministry. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2001.