so says Tim Keller over on his blog.  At least, that is the advice he gives young pastors and or seminarians.  He argues that being a country parson will allow the young or new pastor to learn the pastoral ministry in the general sense.  He rightly argues learning general pastoral ministry is more effectively learned in small churches rural or elsewhere than when filling a more specialized position in a large church either in suburbia or the city (which is his emphasis).   He writes:

Many young leaders perceive that the ideal first ministry position would be a position on the staff of a large church with an older, mature pastor to mentor them.  The limits of this model are several. You can’t teach a younger pastor much about things they aren’t actually doing. And in a large church they aren’t a) bearing the burden of being the main leader, b) leading a board of elders, c) fund-raising and bearing the final responsibility of having enough money to do ministry, d) and doing the gamut of counseling, shepherding, teaching, preaching.

In a smaller church as a solo pastor you and only you visit the elderly, do all the weddings and funerals, sit by the bedside of every dying parishioner, do all the marriage counseling, suspend and excommunicate, work with musicians, craft and lead worship, speak at every men’s retreat, women’s retreat, and youth retreat, write all the Bible studies and often Sunday School curriculum, train all the small group leaders, speak at the nursing home, work with your diaconate as they try to help families out of poverty, evangelize and welcome new visitors to the church, train volunteers to do some (but not all) of all of the above tasks, and deal with the once-a-month relational or financial crisis in the church.  No amount of mentoring can teach you what you learn from doing all those things.

He’s right.  I know because my wife and I pastor a small rural church and there, we cannot be specialists.  We are generalists. We do a bit of everything – and I think this is the task of the true pastor, to be a generalist and not necessarily a specialist, not that there is not a place for specialization, but I happen to think the true pastor is able to minister in just about any given situation, and if they don’t know how, they learn.

Remember, pastoral ministry is a holy vocation, a calling, not a career or another job.   If the Lord is calling you to pastor, fulfill that calling and seriously consider the smaller church.  Yeah, it doesn’t pay much if at all and yeah, you’ll have to get real job, but that is how it is.  Being a pastor is as much a spiritual gift as it is a vocation.  Last I checked, people weren’t paid in the Bible for expressing a spiritual gift to the body of Christ.  The simple fact of the matter is, the vast significant majority of churches in the US, if not the world, are on the smaller side of the small church scale (50-100 people out of the supposed 0-200/300 range).

Think about it.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving day!

is the responsible, passionate, and authentic declaration of the Christ-exalting Scriptures, by the power of the Spirit, for the glory of the triune God.  

-Tony Merida, author of Faithful Preaching.  (which I am not sure why it is not sold here yet- when it should be!).

In his commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, in explaining the phrases within verse 3, he writes regarding humility:

In further application of vv. 6-11, especially v.8, Paul here contrasts “selfish ambition and rivalry” with, “in humility consider others better than yourselves.”  “Humility” is a uniquely Christian virtue, which, as with the message of a crucified Messiah, stands in utter contradiction to the values of the Greco-Roman world, who generally considered not a virtue, but a shortcoming.  Here Paul’s roots are in the OT – and in Christ.  In the OT the term indicates “lowliness” in the sense of “creatureliness,” and the truly humble show so by resting their case with God rather than trusting their own strength and machinations. 

Here is where the application comes, where we need to understand how humility works:

Humility is thus not to be confused with false modesty, or with that kind of abject servility that only repulses, wherein the “humble one” by obsequiosness gains more self-serving attention than he or she could do otherwise.  Rather, it has to do with a proper estimation of oneself, the stance of the creature before the Creator, utterly dependant and trusting.  Here one is well aware both of one’s weaknesses and of one’s glory (we are in his image, after all), but makes neither too much nor too little of either.  True humility is therefore not self-focused at all, but rather, as further defined by Paul in v. 4, “looks not to one’s own concerns but to those of others”  (187-188).   

So, real humility is simply realizing that there is a God of the Universe who is in control of all things, and you are not him.  He alone is the Creator, you are the creature, so live accordingly.   Pride, the opposite of humility, tries to convince the fool that he or she is the creator who can tell the Creator what to do and how to do it or that he or she doesn’t need the Creator and that he can handle things on his or her own.  Humility in contrast then submits to the Creator and lets him guide his or her life.  He or she seeks only to serve the Creator and his creation, thereby serves not one’s own concerns but to those of others. 

Follow?

I know I said a while ago “no more review books.”  But I did have a caveat: except if authors sent them or they just appeared.  Well, my friend Alan Johnson sent my a copy of his recently published book Apostolic Function in 21st Century Missions  published by the William Carey Library which is with the US Center for World Mission.  

Alan spent the 2006-2007 academic year as the J. Philip Hogan Professor of World Missions at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, in Springfield, MO.  This is a yearly professorship to be chaired by various AG missionaries from around the world, where they spend one semester teaching and lecturing on missions and then spend the second semester writing a monograph on some aspect of mission.  For Alan Johnson, his subject is the issue of where mission is to occur as it relates to unreached peoples; places where the gospel has yet to be proclaimed.   He knows his subject well.  For the last 25 years he and his wife have been AGWM missionaries in Thailand (Christianity is less than 2% there, which qualifies it as still an unreached nation).  His work has been primarily among the slum communities in Bangkok (the urban poor), where he still lives and works. 

Since this is not a review just yet, I’ll leave it off with a blurb on the book (from the WCL website):

In the past we have focused on the “why” of missions in terms of motives, the “what” of missions in terms of the content of the message, and the “how” of missions in terms of methodologies and strategies, but the “where” question, in terms of where we send cross-cultural workers, has simply been assumed; it has meant crossing a geographic boundary.

In Apostolic Function in 21st Century Missions, Alan R. Johnson introduces the idea of apostolic function as the paradigm of missionary self-identity that reminds us to focus our efforts on where Christ is not named.  He then examines in detail the “where” paradigm in missions, frontier mission missiology, with a sympathetic critique and a review of the major contributions of unreached people group thinking.  Johnson concludes by illustrating his notion of seeking to integrate missions paradigms and discussing of issues that relate specifically to the “where” questions of missions today.

Personally I cannot think of a more important topic related to Christian mission so I look forward to reading it and getting out a review!

I think I get a pay out finally from WTS books.  When the certificate comes I think I’ll be choosing between the following:

Seyoon Kim.  Christ and Caesar: The Gospel and the Roman Empire in the Writings of Paul and Luke (Eerdmans, 2008).

Tim Keller.  The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (Penguin Group). 

Francis Chan.  Forgotten God: Reversing our tragic neglect of the Holy Spirit (David C. Cook 2009).

Richard Bauckham.  Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World (Baker, 2004).

Dawn and Peterson.  The Unnecessary Pastor: Redisovering the Call (Eerdmans, 1999).

Os Guinness.  The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of your Life (Thomas Nelson, 2003).

Craig Keener.  The Historical Jesus of the Gospels: Jesus in Historical Context (Eerdmans, 2009).

Mark Futato.  Interpreting the Psalms: An Exgetical Handbook (Kregel, 2007).

among others…  

at one of my part-time jobs (I have three with the pastorate), someone said “the stuff here is expensive as hell.”  I immediately thought, well, I don’t think hell is that expensive.  But then I began think about it – could it be that hell is in fact expensive?  I mean think about it.  Grace is free and so few people want it or respond properly to it, in fact, many are suspicious of it, and not a few openly despise it and or reject it.  Yet, how much does it cost a person if they deny the free grace of God and opt instead for hell?  It costs them their whole lives, everything, even their very existence. 

So, while this person didn’t mean it that way, perhaps they were spot on?  What say you?

Thanks to Adrianna Wright of InterVarsity Press (IVP) for this review copy of Howard A. Snyder’s The Community of the King, Revised Edition (IVP, 2004). 

I need to apologize to the folk at IVP, I requested this book some time ago and it’s taken me a long time to read, both because we’ve had a lot going on and because, well, this is a really thick book to read.  While there is only 220 pages of reading part from the indices and extensive bibliography, Snyder has much to say about the church and ecclesiology that I hadn’t really though through before and that have challenged me on a number of levels. 

This makes me ask the question, have you thought through how you view “the Church” both locally and globally, lately?  If not, don’t worry, you’re not alone.   Until I read through The Community of the King, I had not really given much focused thought on the Church and it’s role in the world and in the mission of God.  At least not to the degree that Snyder got me thinking.

Because Snyder covers so much material in this book it hard to know where to begin.  It really deserves a multi-part review covering each section of the book, but I can’t do that so I’ll try to cover the basics here.  He breaks the contents down to three sections each building upon the previous ones to build a solid and biblically based theology of the Church (also called Ecclesiology), both locally and globally.   The entire premise of the book centers around the question, “does the Church bring the Kingdom?” and if so, how so?  For Snyder,

The church is seen as the community of God’s people — a people called to serve God and called to live together in true Christian community as a witness to the character and virtues of God’s reign (13). 

He sees the church as the primary agent of God’s mission on the earth.   The mission (purpose) of God is to bring “all things and, supremely, all people under the dominion and headship of Jesus Christ” (13).   Therefore, the Church, that is, the people of God, is the agent, or the means by which God’s mission is accomplished in this world.  To Snyder, the Church is the only divinely appointed means for the spreading of the gospel in all the world.    So, the Church is the agent of the kingdom.   God is the King of all the earth and God’s people consist of the kingdom, so God’s people then, consist of the community of the King.  As Snyder sees it:

Biblically, neither evangelism nor social action, nor the church’s worship life, nor any other aspect of the church’s being makes full sense divorced from the fact of the Christian community as the visible, flesh-and-blood expression of the kingdom of God (13).

What is the kingdom of God?  “The kingdom of God is the dominion or [spiritual] reign of God and not primarily  place or a realm.  Biblically, the kingdom refers first to a reign, dominion, or rule and only secondarily to the realm over which a reign is exercised” (15). 

What is the mission of the kingdom? 

It is the ongoing reconciling work of God in Christ seen from the perspective of the final definitive establishment of God’s dominion when Christ returns to earth.  So then, in essence because of Christ, “the Kingdom is Jesus Christ and, through the church, the reconciling of all things in him.  For the present it is the growth in the world of the grace, love, joy, health, peace, and justice seen in Jesus.  The kingdom is both present and future, both earthly and heavenly, both hidden and visible (17). 

And this is just some key ideas from the introduction.  This is an important book.  I am surprised I had not heard of it sooner.   It is important Christians gain a solid and proper understanding of the kingdom of God because to misunderstand the kingdom of God (its nature and purpose) is to risk misunderstanding the nature of the Christian faith and what it means to even be a Christian.  So, Snyder’s goal in writing this book is to help create in Christians a kingdom consciousness; to help Christians become more intentional in going about kingdom living; to consciously live as members of the community of the King!

For the remainder of the book, Snyder works out a biblical theology of the church, what it is, and what it should look like.   For Snyder, the essence of the church is not organization or even institution but a charismatic community.  Unlike other recent works that seem to castigate the institutional nature of the modern church, Snyder does not do this.  While the church’s essence is not institution but community and fellowship (koinonia), he recognizes that any time a group of Christians gather together for community, organization and ultimately institutionalism will result (at least in the long run).  Many folks these days mock the very notions of organized religion but really, how does any religion find ways to express itself without some form of organization.  

Now, of course “organized religion” is a term used to decry the faults of institutionalism but really instead of decrying it, the Church, that is, the community of God’s people, merely need to be aware of the potential pitfalls of organizing and so work accordingly.  Plainly put, you can’t really get around it, so work with it (as a case in point, even those who leave the organized church to start home churches or house churches, even they themselves eventually fall prey to the very thing they detest: institutionalism.  It just happens. 

One of the things I most appreciated about Snyder’s work is the approach he took in describing the church.  His model is essentially eclectic in that he takes parts from different models to put together a picture of what the Church should look like in its ideal setting.  He notes the contributions of each tradition (Catholic, Reformed, Pentecostal, Liberationist, etc).  His model is one that emphasizes the Church as the community of God and not a hierarchical institution.  His definition of the Church

seeks to affirm the biblical richness, diversity, and mystery of the true body of Christ and to seek practical models that are both faithful to Scripture and highly relevant to the church’s being… (59). 

I noted earlier that Snyder sees the Church as a charismatic community.  In what sense does he mean charismatic?  Snyder uses the term in the original biblical sense of pertaining to the working and empowering of the grace, or charis of God.  Snyder argues:

The word reminds us both of that grace by which we are saved and of the special gifts of the grace or charisms (charismata) that God promises to the church.  In this sense charismatic has no specific reference to glossolalia except in the general sense that tongues is one of the charisms mentioned in the New Testament (83). 

 He goes on to argue:

The charismatic emphasis, and particularly the doctrine of spiritual gifts, is too important to be abandoned because of controversy over a word.  Charismatic is a good, biblically based term that needs to be restored to the church in full biblical richness.  While the term is not the exclusive property of the charismatic movement, it does remind us that God has used this movement to call the larger body of Christ back to a neglected biblical emphasis.  As Geoffery Bromiley noted, Reformation Protestantism must come to “a fresh realization that Christian ministry is, and has to be, a charismatic movement” (83). 

I can appreciate this emphasis because I belive he is right in saying that the focus is not on the so-called showy gifts of the Spirit but on the fact that the church, both locally and globally, is a Spirit empowered community of faith, empowered by the Holy Spirit to fulfill God’s mission and purpose in the world, which is the redemption and reconciliation of humanity and creation that it may come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. 

Snyder also argues the church as the agent of the kingdom is to be a prophetic community.  Actually, he argues the church is to be both an evangelistic and prophetic agent of the kingdom.  He says the church is to be prophetically evangelistic and evangelistically prophetic.  What does he mean by this? 

For Snyder, “the evangelistic task of the church is to proclaim the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ throughout the world, making disciples and building congregations that are kingdom communities.”  This is the beginning point of the church’s role in God’s redemptive purposes for the world.  “Evangelism is the first priority of the church’s ministry in the world” (118). 

One part I found pretty interesting and that has prompted a bit of a paradigm shift in my thinking is that Snyder sees evangelism as primarily the witness of the church-as-community - meaning the body of Christ as a whole gives witness to Jesus through its actions and discipleship to Jesus, not just individuals.  The same goes for local congregations.  Local congregations as a whole give witness to Jesus through their presence in the community.  While the NT does show the Peter’s and Paul’s who individually go about evangelizing, evangelism remains primarily the responsibility of the community of faith.   So for Snyder, witness and community go together.  This is interesting because what it is implying is that in some ways the individual’s witness to Jesus may or may not amount to much if the community of faith is not behind it (if they are not validating the individuals witness through both word and deed).  What is done on the individual level needs to be confirmed by the larger community (120). 

Also, Snyder sees the end goal of evangelism not so much as getting people saved or gaining coverts as much as it is the formation of Christian community - true church based evangelism is evangelism that builds up the church, the body of Christ, and makes disciples (121).  Many present methods of evangelism have tended to over focus on winning and nurturing individual converts instead of working for the formation of a kingdom community of disciples. 

In the church’s prophetic role, reconciliation is the primary focus.  Snyder lists four ways the church is prophetic: the church is prophetic when it creates and sustains a reconciled and reconciling community of believers.   The reconciliation is of course between God and man but Snyder argues that transformation should lead to lots of other forms of reconciliation such as with marriages, broken relationships in general along with racial, social or economic marginalization (126). 

The church is also prophetic when it recognizes and indentifies the true emeny – the devil.  In recognizing Satan as the real ememy of people’s souls and as the enemy of the church, the church seeks to bring liberation through reconciliation, which leads to breaking the bondage of sin in people’s hearts and lives (128-129). 

The church is prophetic when it renounces the world’s definition of practice and power.  Real Christianity follows Jesus in using power differently than the way the world does.  Rather than to seek hierarchy and authority, real power is found in humility, service and love. 

Finally, the church is prophetic when it works for justice in society.  This is when the church, as the community of the King is less concerned about the status quo and instead seeks the safety, dignity, and personal rights of the defenseless.  It is prophetic when it seeks to minimize marginalization of the poor and oppressed. 

It’s in these ways that the church then, through the power of the Holy Spirit functions as the agent of the kingdom and reveals its true purpose and nature.   There is plenty more to talk about with regard to this book but the purpose of a review is not to necesarily give all the details but focus on the major points and then evaluate them accordingly. 

As I said before, this is an important book and if you are interesting in working on your own theology of the church – Snyder’s book, The Community of the King would be a great place to start.

in the same thread I noted that was going on over at TC Robinson’s blog was a  discussion of the development of Paul’s theology, that by reading his letters chronologically we can see such a development.   It’s the question as to the origin of Paul’s gospel (where did it come from and how did it come to be?).  What is meant by this?  This means that some see a progression or a development of Paul and his theology from Galatians to Romans with Romans being the fuller more fully developed theology. 

Well, I don’t see it that way.  I personally do not think that Paul’s theology developed much if at all.  I think there is very little evidence, if any, of a development of his theology in his letters. 

To me, it’s almost a non-sequitor, in that it doesn’t necessarily follow that because Romans is the longer  more developed work as compared to Galatians (often called the “little or short Romans” (or something like that) that Paul’s theology “developed” over time.   While I can’t exaplain why Romans is longer, I don’t think it’s development or detailed nature necessarily show a more fully developed or matured Paul.   My guess is that because Romans is very much a kind of introductory letter to the church at Rome, whom Paul had not yet met or known, it makes sense he took a little more time to explain things than he did in his letter to the Galatians because he had spend time with the Galatians (even if it was early in his missionary/church planting venture). 

As I see it, Paul was a quite well educated Pharisee and was quite well developed theologically.  It was just that he was a Jew and really seemed to have a serious problem with the notion of Jesus being the Messiah, as did many other Jews at the time.  However, it seemed he was thinking about it, processing it, wondering how could it be, especially after seeing how Stephen responded to his martyrdom.  So as he was raging and tromping his way to Damascus to arrest and kill more Christians, he has a supernatural encoutner with the risen Jesus…

I am of the opinion that, at that very moment, the moment he realized Jesus of Nazaeth was/is the Messiah, everything clicked together, all the questions, all the concerns, all the wondering if it could possibly be true, everything, all at once, made sense, and at that moment, Paul had his theology, his gospel.  Perhapas over the next three days while he was blind, fasting and praying, he processed it all, he put it all together, then repented and was batpized!

So I also don’t think he went off to Arabia to “study the Bible” and develop his theology.  Instead, he was off preaching the gospel, he knew almost immediately he was to be an apostle to the Gentiles and he started in Arabia, until he was forced to leave due to some changes in Roman leaderhsip there.  He fled to Jerusalem, met with the pillars of the church, confirmed his call as Apostle to the Gentiles and went from there. 

That’s my take.

Over on TC’s blog – they are discussing Viola’s book Pagan Christianity and the recent post discuses the order of Paul’s letters and the chronological order of the NT Church.  The author suggests that many of the supposed theological distortions in the present day church are based on a misarrangement of Paul’s letters as they are presently in the NT Canon.  They argue that reading Paul and the NT church chronologically will aid in promoting healthier theology in the church.

I do not necessarily agree with this but it does make me wonder how it would work to preach through Paul’s letters chronologically rather than canononically? would this just be another way of growing and developing a congregation theologically and historically?  or no?

What say you?  You can see TC’s blog post for the ordering of Paul’s letters according to Viola and Barna.