Pastors Learning The Art Of War

Dear Tim,

 I write this open letter to you on the day after the Christian church celebrated the Festival of Pentecost, the birthday of the Christian church. That event got me thinking about you and the thousands of other ordained pastors who nourish and sustain our spiritual lives with their teaching, preaching and guidance from God's Word as the church goes about her mission to spread the Gospel. In turn, that got me to thinking about how I might draw from my own 50+ years in the public ministry to help and encourage you in your calling as a Christian pastor.

In the past several months I've been leading a small group of men and women from our congregation in a Bible study of the Apostle Paul's letters to a young pastor with the same name you bear. At the moment we're in the second of those epistles, the one where Paul writes with the conviction that this may well be the last correspondence he will have with Timothy. Listen to what he says,

As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. - 2Ti 4:5-8 ESV

As I approach my 80th birthday I think often about those words. It strikes me almost strange that he writes about himself as a soldier who has fought the good fight. I started college in 1950, the same year that the United States became embroiled in the Korean war. At the time I was already a pre-seminary student at the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod's Concordia College in St. Paul, Minnesota. I can still remember the patriotic fervor that spread among many of us young men on campus. Some immediately enlisted and went on to become involved in the war. We pre-seminarians were not expected to serve in the military. Nevertheless, I felt as if I should. That feeling persisted even as I entered the seminary in St. Louis in 1952 to complete two years of college and two years of seminary education in preparation of ordination.

Oh, wait. Let me explain. Our church body, as your probably know, had its own closed college/seminary system at the time—the Concordia system. That system was based upon the German gymnasium system, similar to the British grammar school system or the various prep schools in the United States. The four years of high school and the first two years of college were tied together and even numbered with the Latin numbers from six to one (sexta to prima). After completing our prima (or sixth) year we went on to complete our seminary education at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. At the time almost none of us pre-seminary system students went to the other seminary at Springfield, Illinois. That was for men who wanted to become pastors later in life and did not often have a college education. But that's another story. Missouri Synod has long since abandoned that approach.

My point is that I was not aware at the time that I was preparing for battle or that I was to become a soldier stationed at the front line. That was something I was to learn over the years as I squared off against a variety of spiritual foes. I'll tell you more about that in a later letters where I will share more about fellow pastors who tried to discredit my teachings and my reputation, congregation members I considered close friends who betrayed me and worked hard to shut me down and many emotional and spiritual temptations that threatened to destroy my marriage and family.

Then there were hundreds of times when I was called to fight for the lives of congregation members facing attacks upon themselves and their families. In those times I learned that the work of a pastor is indeed soldiering and fighting in the war against the forces of darkness. At one of those dark times some other words from the Apostle Paul were of great encouragement. I turned to them often. I leave them with you today.

You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. - 2Ti 2:1-4 ESV

The war in Korea is ended—for the moment. The war against Satan and the powers of darkness continues. More on that later.

As Paul says, "be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus."