Pastors As Examples

An often quoted exhortation by the writer of the Hebrews letter is found in the final chapter. He urges us to

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. ... 

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. - Hebrews 13:7, 17 ESV

The Hebrew Names Version of the World English Bible puts the above verses like this:

Remember your leaders, men who spoke to you the word of God, and considering the results of their conduct, imitate their faith. . .  

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they watch on behalf of your souls, as those who will give account, that they may do this with joy, and not with groaning, for that would be unprofitable for you. - Hebrews 13:7, 17 HNV

Five commands pop out from these sentences:

• Remember
• Consider
• Imitate
• Obey
• Submit

He is speaking about those called into the ministry of Word and Sacrament, usually known among Christians as pastors, shepherds, reverend fathers, bishops, etc.—our clergy. What is he urging us to do? Let's start with remember. 

To remember is, of course, much more than recalling our pastor's name or sending him a card on his birthday. It means to be mindful of a person and then to act upon what you learned by remembering him. One example will suffice. 

Jesus speaks about what it will be like immediately before He returns to bring judgment upon the world (Luke 17:24-37). People will keep on doing what they've always done, eating, drinking, marrying and giving their daughters and sons in marriage. That's the way it was right up until the flood came in the days of Noah's building the ark. It was also that way on the day that Lot and his family fled Sodom before fire and sulphur rained down from heaven. 

But, says the LORD, remember Lot's wife (Gen. 19:17-26). What did she do or not do? She went with her family, but only so far. Finally she couldn't leave her home and everything in it. She couldn't obey the command to get out and not look back. And what happened to her? She got caught in the devastation. All that was left of her was a pile of salt! Remember that and do not follow her example. 

Now turn it around with pastors, assuming that they truly live godly lives. Remember them! Consider the results of their conduct. What happened when they lived as they did? By and large they are men who are examples to follow. That's why he urges us to imitate their faith. The Apostle Paul was willing to be an example. For instance he writes, 

For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, ... It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. - 2Th 3:7, 9 ESV

Many of us have watched our pastors and learned to imitate them. We thank God for these living examples of a living faith in our LORD Jesus. This is also why we willingly and joyfully obey them and submit to their guidance and teaching. We know that they are called to watch over our souls. They do not want us to be deceived by the many, many false and confusing teachings in this world. And we know that one day they too will have to give an answer to the LORD for their teaching and their leadership.

Keep your pastors in your prayers and joyfully follow their examples.

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."

Under-Shepherds Of The Good Shepherd

In my previous posting I wrote about some of the idols worshipped by Christian pastors. You may feel I am overly judgmental or that I create caricatures. That's OK. At least you are struggling with the point I am trying to make: shepherds called to care for Christ's flock are easily tempted to worship themselves, to be proud and over-bearing, to be so zealous for causes that they become blind to what their very zeal is doing to the sheep they are called to tend. All this is idolatry, what Jeremiah calls the worship of scarecrows in a cucumber patch (Jeremiah 10:5).

For these reasons I want to return to John 10, the Biblical passage that got me going on this topic. Remember that this chapter is a continuation of  Jesus confronting the hypocricy of the Pharisees, those pietistic Jews who condemned him for giving sight to a man who in all his life had never seen or known anything but darkness. Those same Pharisees absolutely refused to acknowledge the wonder of what had happened. Instead they threw the man out and condemned Jesus as a sinner who scorned God's will by working on the Sabbath. So we return to what Jesus said in John 10.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers." - Jhn 10:1-5 ESV

I take it that Jesus is talking about how spiritual leaders—pastors or shepherds—gain control of flocks. In the immediate context Jesus addresses the Pharisees who had condemned him for healing that blind man on the Sabbath. They were so zealous to obey every tiny point of the Jewish legal system that they missed the very heart of what God's Word teaches. In other words, they were so wrapped up in proving themselves to the LORD that they forgot his command to "love your neighbor as yourself." And these same Pharisees had great influence among the Jewish population. They were admired, respected and believed to be true shepherds and teachers of the flock of God.

Now along comes Jesus, with his in your face acts of working on the Sabbath when the Law (as they understood it) demanded they rest, pray and do no work whatsoever (cf. Deut. 5:12-15). There are many similar New Testament stories about Jesus "breaking" the Sabbath. Samples:

• Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, "Come here." And he said to them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?" But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. - Mark 3:1-6 ESV

• At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, "Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath." He said to them, "Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath." - Mat 12:1-8 ESV

So back to the shepherds or pastors. How do they rightfully enter the sheepfold? Jesus says, "he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep." Jesus goes on to interpret his mashal, his parable. He makes several points.

1. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. - John 10:9 ESV
2. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. - John 10:11 ESV
3. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. - John 10:14-15 ESV
4. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. - John 10:16 ESV

Apply what Jesus teaches about under-shepherds called by him to tend God's flock in a particular place and time.

1. The pastor is first and always himself a sheep who may enter God's flock only and ever by the sacrifice of Jesus. The pastor also lives in daily penitence and depends totally upon God's grace and mercy in Christ for his personal salvation. Through and in Jesus he finds nourishment for his soul. His personal relationship with Jesus guides everything he does and teaches, since he realizes that his task as shepherd is to lead each member of his flock to follow Jesus, the one and only Good Shepherd. 
2. Following the pattern set by that same Good Shepherd, the under-shepherd recognizes that his task is to "lay down his life for the sheep." His calling is to tend that particular flock committed to his charge. He is to use each and every gift he has to care for his flock. He dare not neglect his flock to focus instead upon some other cause, however worthy he thinks it may be.
3. That further implies that he learns to "know" his flock. This means that he becomes personally acquainted with the members of his flock. He visits them, prays for and with them, teaches them, sorrows and rejoices with them. He is their pastor. They are his sheep. 
4. And then he turns to the world around him, because he knows that Jesus has other sheep that are not of this particular fold. Whether they are many or but one, he is committed to bringing them also into the flock of God. This will involve leading them also to see their sin and receiving Jesus as their one and only Savior. "So there will be one flock, one shepherd." 

I need to discuss further that relationship of the members of the flock to the pastor placed over them, but that must wait until the next time.