There is something good and true about the particularity of your faith and life, though you mustn’t get too inside of yourself. You mustn’t see things so close that you are nearsighted. You have to try and see things from 20,000 feet. Let’s call it being sober-minded.2

Stop yourself as you study God’s Word and prepare to teach it. Remind yourself that the life of the congregation has needs greater than you can supply in yourself, and then ask God to help you be honest with yourself about the things you intend to make a big deal about and the things you don’t. Does it make sense to “harp on” some things while ignoring others?

A pastor/elder will often reveal himself in the things he chooses to read, listen to, preach and teach, and then apply from God’s Word. Some things become like giants to the man. Perhaps, they frighten him. Other things, he hardly knows exist.

A goal for the mature man is that his teaching becomes whole, rather than uneven and lopsided. Do not become the one-stringed preacher.

Your past and present fears often rise up and affect what you spend your time thinking about. Surely, the things you think about, will both interfere and inform your sermons and writing and classes and such. It is not all bad, for God has impressed some things into you. But, if you’re not cautious, it can diminish your effectiveness and keep you from gaining greater breadth of mind. An elder needs breadth of mind. He needs to think broader in order to help more of his congregants.

After all, you are to preach and teach the whole counsel of God.3

Stop and consider your past and present fears: Are you afraid of financial ruin? of death? of infidelity? of humiliation? of imprisonment? of being mocked? of the future degradation of society? of losing your children’s love or respect? etc., then chances are you will be thinking, selecting texts, teaching, and applying the Word, against those giants that seem so menacing to you.4

Oftentimes, a man’s giants arise from his past pain. He was hurt by someone and doesn’t want to be hurt again. He has thought a lot about it, how to avoid it, how evil the thing was. It is hard to make scars invisible. And a pastor/elder shouldn’t act like they don’t exist. In fact, he might have something good to say on these subjects. It is just that life and faith are greater than his giants. The giants needs to be put in their places.

Giants do not only exist from personal pain. They come from the outside teachers as well. (See the list from footnote three below.) I remember how talk radio used to steer people’s thinking (mine too) every morning and afternoon as they came and went to work. Now it is podcasts and other social media accounts.

Look. It is easy to get riled up over the latest goings on. And it should be clear to mature people that these VITALLY IMPORTANT topics are not nearly as vital and important as is suggested. And I say this because of how rapidly they appear and disappear on the digital airwaves. People get worked up for about two weeks on some issue and then here comes a new one.

These hot issues - or giants of the day - will show up frequently in your teaching if you spend a lot of time dwelling over them. They will come out in the passages you pick, your exposition, and the applications you make.

The problem becomes that you begin to teach the Bible mostly around your obsession with the giants. You want to teach the congregation about how large the giant is, and so you page around looking for a passage you can use. You want to quote from Paul, Peter, Jesus, and Moses mostly to prove a point. Your aim is to speak to whatever it is you’ve been thinking about lately. That is a sermon driven by a preacher more than a sermon driven by a text.

Does this mean you should not teach on the issues of the day? No. But it does mean you should make your intentions quite plain and transparent. Own up to it, “I’m about to teach on a topic I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.”

The congregation needs to know they can trust you with every text of Scripture and that you will respect the intention of the Bible writers. They are NOT helped when you leverage into a bible passage your latest obsessions. It is confusing. They begin to doubt themselves, whether they even understand the Scripture. They are stymied trying to figure out how you were able to condemn, say RACISM, by using Jesus encounter with the Syrophoenician woman.5

So, as a teacher, you will be tempted by selfishness and self-deception. These are inexcusable ways you become an impediment between the congregation and God. And I mean you can be a real, every day, dastardly obstacle.

However, your sin is not the only obstacle to your teaching. You will also find yourself greatly restrained by the limits God has placed on you as a mere human.

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For example, your knowledge will never be exhaustive. It will always be partial.

Whether you attend a denominational seminary where course work was chosen for you based on the flavor of the seminary’s tradition, or if you’ve been free-lancing your way, like a bee, from one interesting theologian to another, still there will be many things you will never learn or even have heard of. I’ve been a Christian for over 40-years and two of my favorite theologians I just met in the last three years: Harry Blamires1 and Cornelis Van der Waal.2

They are both deceased. I only met them through their books.

My point is: your knowledge is only a patch cut from a large swath.

Further, as a teacher you will need to learn that there is only so much time in a day. There is only so much time in your life. And it takes time to live and study and provide for a family and work a job and talk with people and prepare manuscripts, and on and on. You will never accomplish all there is to do.

There is, also, only so much space in one man’s heart and mind. Each of us will learn some things and forget them. Other things you will have to relearn, because you were taught wrong. And there will always be better teachers and deeper thinkers.

In the movie Hoosiers, about a high school basketball team, a new coach arrives to teach the young men how to become a great team. They played some good basketball prior to his arrival, but they were deficient as a team. The coach arrived with high level experience, but because of bad life decisions he had to take this lesser coaching, and teaching job, in an Indiana high school. The character is Coach Norman Dale, and he is played by Gene Hackman. I bring the movie up because at one heated point during practice, Coach Dale said something that would give his players perspective, if they listened to him. He said, "I’ve forgotten more about this game than you’ll ever know." Classic!

This comment by Coach Dale makes me think about the massive amount of things I’ve forgotten. Imagine, in paradise, if everything you ever learned and forgot had returned to you memory and was crystal clear again to you? Will we possess such clarity in heaven? Of course, our knowledge will still not be exhaustive. We are not God. But our minds will be made whole, which could mean you won't have forgotten anything any longer.3

So no, teacher, your knowledge will never be exhaustive. You will only be able to offer small morsels to your congregation. They will be important morsels, but they will not be sufficient to meet every learner’s need.

There will be things you will want to study, and plan into your calendar, and preach, but then you will become too old or you will die before you get to it. You might have good intentions to write articles and books too, but it could be that crickets will chirp and jump past your grave before you put pen to paper.

It is to be expected. You are only human. God has not made you superhuman.

He has made you an individual man - with feet of clay - and placed you in a particular spot to do His particular kingdom work. Most humans will not even know you exist. What’s more, those who do know about you will forget much of what you said and did. Your name might not even be remembered within a generation or two.

But that’s OK. Ponder it, so that it adds to your humility.

The question for you is, “How can I learn the things God wants me to learn and pass it on to the people He has put in my life? How can I work effectively to lead people within my generation, and be a benefit to those who will come after? How can I effectively add my work as a pastor/elder to the building up of Christ’s Church in history?”

Your life is short. Your knowledge is severely limited. You won’t travel the world. God will feed you with a dropper, enough to sustain you for His purposes and His people’s benefit. Some of the best resources will be hidden from you.

And, thankfully, you will walk paths others have worn down for you before you showed up. You might think it’s OK to walk past books written by unacknowledged thinkers. You might shrug them off as irrelevant. I suggest that some of them you should stop and read. They might be deep in the woods and off the main roads, but there are some jewels. Be cautious, but not threatened. Some thinkers were not recognized as important until after they died.

Finally, God is pleased that you are a drop in the sea, for you serve His purpose; and that is what He wants; it is the greatest good. You’re a drop, but an important drop and a necessary part of God’s sea.

However, there are things in the Bible on which I know we all don’t see eye-to-eye. We’ve had some healthy exchanges in my kitchen and dining room and on trips in my car, all throughout life. I hope that I’ve taught them to ask the hard questions. Not one of them is quick to receive a teaching they don’t agree with.

In our disagreements, I confess, I have become concerned about their waywardness (as a father should) and they, alternatively, have become concerned about me adding to or taking away from Scripture. I get it.1

So what does this do to me when I’m preparing to preach a sermon? Am I tempted to leave something unspoken (though the text speaks to it) for fear of how one of my children might respond? I can tell you, how they will respond, it does enter my thoughts but so does the response that might come from others in the congregation.

Ultimately, I better come clean with God. Right? I best not neglect preaching the whole counsel whether my children like it or not, whether the congregation likes it or not, whether I like it or not.

This is Paul’s advice to Timothy, “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.”2

So then, it is about God’s Word. It helps us. We need it, whether or not we want it in the moment.

Of course, it’s not all bad to be concerned about how people might respond. It keeps you thinking. You dig deeper. You tend to really want God to prove it to you before you go out on that ice. And as iron sharpens iron,3 so do a pastor’s children and congregants sharpen the pastor. When he preaches to people he really loves, and he knows they might not like what he is about to teach, then he digs deeper (hopefully) for fear of being a false teacher, a complacent teacher, who could drive those people away.

I’m glad my kids think hard on things. And, I suppose, I’m glad they’ve disagreed with me a fair amount. Nonetheless, I’ve got to love God and His truth the most. It is His Word that must go out from the pulpit. I answer to Him, no matter who likes it or doesn’t. And I understand that, sometimes, people are just not ready for it yet. So then, it is up to them and the Holy Spirit to sift and shake it.

This is not to insinuate that I’ve only ever preached correctly. I can teach wrong, no matter how hard I study to show myself approved by God. My children will probably be the first to tell you!

I will always go back to when I taught “Christian” pacifism. Turn the other cheek and all, but I taught it to the point of complete non-resistance: Gandhi-like. I figured if you beat up my grandma that I should trust the Lord to intervene, for I was not to resist the one who would do evil, and all that. I was foolish. I was not handling Scripture properly. I was young and naive.

When I learned better, I guess I didn’t tell my friend Dave about my mistakes. His question to me was sobering for me, “Why didn’t you tell me you don’t believe in pacifism anymore?” It is sobering because he said it as if his faith and obedience depended on me. Yikes teacher!

I suppose your church family can affect even your selection of sermon topics or a book of the Bible or where you choose to begin and end a passage. You will have to pray and ask God to keep you honest about that. What is in your heart and mind that provokes a particular passage? And you will also have to be kept honest about disjointing the text to promote something YOU want to say.

I see the alternate motivation in young men. Some of them want to receive a chest bump or a high five for really pulling out the stops against feminism, and political compromise, and meek qualities like kindness and compassion and such. Here too, you can be tempted to look for passages and books that allow you to really bring your points home and garner praise from others of like mind. Don't preach for attaboys!

I think perhaps the best advice I could give is to prayerfully pick a book of the Bible that seems like it would help build-up the congregation to a mature man.4 Then study the book by reading it through a few times, then read commentaries from different centuries and preach as close to verse-by-verse with application for today that fits within the scope at which the biblical writer was aiming.

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I prepare a manuscript with every sermon. I don’t wing it. I even type out all my points of congregational application. Why do I do that? Because, if I didn’t type out the applications, pretty soon I’d use the same ones over and over again. There may be an ocean full of applications for God’s Word, but I’d be reaching quickly into the waters with my fishing net and only ever skimming the same floating seaweed and pieces of driftwood. That is what happens if you leave it up to in-the-moment thinking.1

I had someone ask me once whether a Pastor should apply Scripture to life. Isn’t it sufficient to simply explain (exposit) what a Scripture passage says?

It is a question I had to think on for a moment. However, I concluded, if Scripture is not applied by the Pastor (carefully applied, not haphazardly applied) wouldn’t it be the same as reading the Scripture but not obeying it? In other words, isn’t each act of obedience the application of Scripture to our lives? So then, why would a teacher refrain from suggesting what those acts should look like?

I find that Dr. John Frame’s proposition captures the heart of it, when he writes, “The best way to define theology, in my view, is as the application of the whole Bible to the whole human life. Theology is not an attempt to articulate our feelings about God (Schleiermacher), but neither is it merely an attempt to state the objective truth, or to put the truth in ‘proper order’ (Hodge), for Scripture already does those things perfectly well. Theology is, rather, teaching the Bible for the purpose of meeting human needs. It answers human questions, tries to relieve doubts, applies texts to life-situations.”2

I do think a pastor will do a disservice to God’s Word and His people if he doesn’t apply Scripture the way the text demands. In other words, it is problematic if we take the text wherein Jesus is washing his disciples feet and then, construe an application about how we ought to “wash the nations feet” by fighting against abortion or some such thing. This is to misapply Scripture. It actually diminishes the Word of God. It is imperative that the text steer the direction and length of a teacher’s application.

So then, each sermon I prepare is usually somewhere between 8 to 12 pages, 16 point Liberation Serif font, single-spaced except between paragraphs. The sermons go about 35 to 40 minutes. And if people ever jokingly comment about the longer length of a sermon, I tell them, “Your’e welcome!”

I’ve preached 22 years. There are 794 sermons on SermonAudio.com with my name attached. I preached even more sermons before we signed up with that website hosting service. But here is the reason I mention it. It happens to be the reality I’m faced with. I’m on record. A lot of words have left my lips that I have not consistently followed. As a sinful man, I’m truly a hypocrite.

And Jesus’ instruction to his followers stings a bit.

"Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 'The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.'"3

I don’t want Jesus to give that advice about me. I want to feel that what I preach, I do. Yet sometimes I get caught up in the glorious truth of the Scripture. I see what it is that we should think and do. I reflect with fondness on the faithful saints of the past and I kind of put myself in their shoes as if they perfectly fit my feet too. Then I teach it, as if I were on the side of truth, and that the congregation should be doing likewise.

But do I do it? Do I do the thing I’m teaching? Or do I comfort myself in the thought that my preaching is my part in the doing? Do you know what I mean?

A pastor/elder is supposed to teach. If he does it properly, the people learn and apply God’s Word to life. They obey it. He has done well!

However, to be an effective teacher, you must live-out what you teach. A good pastor/elder is required to lead by example and not just with his words. The idea is that you are not pointing in the direction others should go but, instead, you are leading them there.

So I preach sermons, yet upon sober reflection, I do not oppose the king’s edict like Daniel and his Hebrew friends in Babylon. I do not go out into the Areopagus with Paul to evangelize the Epicurean and Stoic Philosophers, and the city’s Council of Elders. I do not even do less confrontational things, like Dorcas, who made tunics and garments, for the widows and the poor. I picture myself willing to do all of the above, but then in actuality...4

I am a Christian, to be sure. I do live a life of obedience to God on some levels. My point is, however, that I have taught things and imagined things that are NOT congruent with the lifestyle I've grown comfortable in. And if I teach for, or against, a thing, maybe I (subconsciously) find myself feeling less guilty for NOT DOING the thing. In other words, my conscience can be eased by my preaching, as if my words somehow fulfilled my obligation. I’m not sure how clear I’m being.

This distance, between how I imagine myself and how I really am, became clear to me in the Summer of 1992,5 when a neighbor challenged me to go along with him to join in the abortion protests taking place in the city of Milwaukee, WI. He sat me down to watch a video about the efforts of the Missionaries to the Preborn (founded by the Reverend Matthew Trewhella), and I began to read a book my friend gave me called, Shattering the Darkness, (written by the Reverend Joseph Foreman). God used both to pry me from my television-watching apathy. And though I was uncomfortable with the idea of the potential conflict, I felt compelled. So I went down to Milwaukee, with my friend, to join hundreds of Christians, thousands at some points, to oppose the killing of the innocent.

My friend and I were arrested (alongside many others) on a couple different occasions for sitting non-violently in front of the abortion clinic doors to prevent a “mother’s” access. One of the other elders from our church6 shared in those experiences as well. It was during that period of time that we first got introduced to each other.

I would say that those events made Christianity more public to me. Prior to them, my faith had pretty much been contained to my private, family and church life.

Also, I had now become somewhat more of what I previously only imagined myself to be. Was I a Daniel or a Paul at this point? Hardly, but I was closer. And I felt much more relevant in regard to God’s kingdom work, less the hypocrite about some things.

The challenge of a pastor/elder is to live-out what you teach. Words without action are cheap. Preaching should require sacrifice.

When it comes to teaching, I go back to the idea that we are all mud puddles. Some of us are dirtier than others. The goal is to become potable (drinkable). For that we need God’s Spirit and God’s Word. The two combined are the necessary agents for cleaning us up. It is the same for our congregants.

As mud puddles, we become cleaner or dirtier by how we spend our time thinking and doing. It is important, therefore, to measure your steps and to think on what is good.

St. Paul recommends, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”1

Paul also says, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”2

Now consider, if you spend a lot of time thinking about and doing leisurely things like fishing, golf, softball leagues, video games, television viewing, and jigsaw puzzles, these have the capacity to rob you of time to do other things like work, study, pursue justice, write, show compassion, pray, child-train, worship, plan financially, get involved politically, etc. From top to bottom, all of these are permissible and beneficial.3

The question for you is mostly one of degree. Are you looking carefully at how you walk? Could you be more circumspect? Do you really need to go fishing one more time this week? Really, are you going to spend another night in front of the television? Are you going to be late coming home from work again?

It may be that none of those things are sinful, but foolishness is measured by the amount of flour you put into the bread mix. It is determined by how high you set the oven temperature.

The question you should ask is one of priority. How should I spend my life’s time, in order to become a cleaner mud puddle? Earlier in his life, another elder in our church read God’s Word and Christian theological books during his lunch breaks as a general contractor. He held a sandwich in one hand and a theologian in the other.

If, someday, you want to offer other Christians to drink from your life and teaching, then from what kind of puddle will they be drinking?

If your time today is invested too much in a hobby or in a cause or at rest, it is likely going to have an effect on you as a teacher.

First, and the most obvious effect is that you will NOT be spending a proper amount of time on superior things - including the reading and studying of God’s Word. You will be whittling away the importance of your life. Your mud puddle will remain murkier because you lack effort. Three hours of golf may be fun and relaxing, but it is three hours of life.

Second, and the more harmful effect, is there is a good chance you will modify God’s Word to the way you’ve chosen to live your life. You will pick from it and teach only those things that support you. You will avoid the things that make you feel like you’re not being the man you should be. You might only preach “grace” when you should also preach “justice.”

Now imagine some of your time and many of your thoughts are spent in blatant and recurring sin: lust, drunkenness, divisiveness, rage, dishonesty, cowardice. Will the guilt of your sin cause you to avoid teaching on these subjects or will you beat the drum all the more against these sins from personal guilt. Yet, if you remain unrepentant, then hypocrisy gets added to your character.

Harry Blamires says, “There are no foes to truth so powerful as the selfish passions.”4

Paul told Timothy, "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths."5

Obviously, congregants who look for teachers that will support their sin and the status quo, will find one in the man who limits his teaching to the things which he finds comfortable. He will be their kind of preacher, for he will be like them. It is similar to politics. We get the governors we deserve. They vote the way we vote.

As a teacher, you are not going to be able to escape yourself.

How you spend your time in thoughts and deeds will determine your effectiveness for God and His Church.

So, since you’re someone who doesn’t want to walk down that leisurely path, someone who doesn’t want to remain in his sin, and someone who doesn’t want to discard the hard things of Scripture, what is your alternative? How can you escape yourself?

I suggest you EMBRACE passages that convict you, don’t ignore them. Life is not about you being comfortable. It’s OK to let an uncomfortable new thought percolate in your brain. Even for a longer time. I’ve picked up a biblical thing in my mind and carried it around for years, not knowing what to do with it.6

As you do this, ask God to help you make sense of it, to give you breadth of mind.7 Ask him to remove sin from you, to “keep me from temptation and deliver me from evil.” Pray that regularly, especially when you feel tempted. He will change you by His Spirit. And that is what we are after as elders.

Caution: Every time your conscience twinges or your curiosity purrs as you read some bible passage or listen to a religious teacher or read a theological book, don’t immediately assume you’re guilty (or wrong) and need to change. Live with the tension until you get it figured out.

On the other hand, when God does teach you something, by His Word and Spirit, you best obey Him. Even if it requires a significant change. Especially then, for that would mean you’ve held onto significant error or sin. This is why Jesus went around proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”8

I want to give you some examples of how a mud puddle pastor/elder like me can get in the way of God’s Word and hinder it from helping the people I’m supposed to be teaching.

And when a younger man grows up in a congregation, people are able to spot in him a willingness to help others grow in Christ. You can see him working at it. He loves God and others. Whether he realizes it as such, he is improving his teaching skills. Certainly, he is apt to teach.1

Sometimes, however, the reasons for wanting to share can turn crooked in man. It is when teaching becomes more about him than about God. Even when a person teaches something that is biblically correct, he will undermine it if he’s motivated by his flesh rather than by God’s Spirit.

Here is a passage that demonstrates the challenge of maintaining proper motives before God as a teacher. It is Numbers 12:1-4.

1Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman. 2And they said, “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the LORD heard it. 3Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth. 4And suddenly the LORD said to Moses and to Aaron and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.” And the three of them came out.

If you were one of the three, I suggest it be Moses! I’ve never seen a more wonderful thing said of a man than, “Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth.”2

More meek than all the people who were on the face of the earth?! Incredible! I want to be that guy. (Or so I tell myself.) There is, however, a lifetime of decisions and trials and experiences with God that are required to make a Moses. I’m pretty sure I don’t choose the hard things, whereas Moses was willing. I fear I’ve often chosen the smoother paths.

Jesus made it clear in the beatitudes of His sermon, ““Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”3

I like the idea of inheriting the earth. And I’m a firm believer that the kingdoms of this world are “given to the people of the saints of the Most High.”4 I believe Jesus has been giving His church the world (incrementally) throughout history, ever since His Ascension to the right hand of God the Father. But I don’t believe the Church can succeed without humility. She must be meek to inherit the earth. And Her teachers will find the greatest success only in meekness.

Look. You don’t want to be Miriam or Aaron called out by God to come meet ME at the tent.

If, as a teacher, you’ve become full of yourself - puffed up while teaching in the “name of God” - you are dismantling the church, not building it. You are hurting things, not helping. Accuracy is not enough, either. Your soul must be right. Indeed, as I’ve told my children and grandchildren, “It is more important to be good than to be right.”

When your heart deceives you, and pride becomes your undergarment, your efforts to build up the Church will be in vain. Your teaching will be like constructing with hay, stubble, wood and cardboard, and it will be burnt up, because God is a consuming fire.5 You may even teach things biblically (as I’m sure Aaron and Miriam had) yet if your heart is not set on the Spirit of God it isn’t serving the people of God. You’ve got to be FOR God and FOR people.6

I believe Paul provides a wonderful corrective in 1 Corinthians 13. Pride was a big problem for that particular church. And he says in that chapter something that teachers should take to heart. Paul says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

How do you avoid teaching what is right but for the wrong reasons? How do you become meek like Moses? In one sense, you have to take yourself out of it. Miriam and Aaron had invested too much in what people thought of them. They were concerned with positions. Not so for Moses. He seemed ever concerned for God and God’s people.

The problem is that we can fool ourselves. Our sin is pretty dastardly at times. Jeremiah gives a clear warning of what ails us, along with the remedy for healing. He writes, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? “I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”7

So then pray to God that you will not victimize yourself. Pray that he will search you and know you and keep you from sinful motives. Ask Him to give you a heart like David’s and the meekness of Moses.

Then put Him and His people ahead of yourself. Love them both. If you love God and others, you will rely on Him to do whatever He wants with those you’re trying to teach. And you will love the people enough that they know that you’re on their side even when you need to correct them.

You thought this was a book geared to helping men who wanted to someday become an elder in the church. This chapter is supposed to help me to learn how I need to become a better teacher of God’s people.

So what is all this talk about: paideia, shinan, autonomy (self-law), self-deception, sin, regeneration, unlearning, interpreting knowledge, suppression, sense of deity, and so forth? My hope was to lay some gravel as a base. It is so that you to realize that teaching God’s Word to people is more complicated than simply sharing Bible knowledge with a person who stands eager to receive it.

You should know going in that most non-Christians are predisposed against knowledge: both God’s written revelation and His natural one. Trying to teach them about the things of God can feel an awful lot like calling out into a large empty forest hoping for a faint human response.

Now, you might console yourself thinking, That’s OK, I am mostly concerned to teach believers! And I think you should be.1 But then, secondly, you should know that very often Christians don’t want to hear what God says either.

Even in the Church, among brothers and sisters, the sinful nature is the greatest obstacle to the teaching and learning process. The non-Christian is controlled by it. The Christian still has IT in him and he can let IT lead the way rather than God’s Spirit.2

So say you are teaching on the propriety of worshiping and resting and not laboring on the Lord’s Day.3 And present in your congregation is someone who owns a grocery store that happens to be open at the very same time the words are falling from your lips. What is the man thinking as you attempt to teach the proper parameters of God’s 4th Commandment? He could be thinking, I don’t believe that commandment matters any longer in the New Testament. Or, People have to eat on Sundays, and sometimes they need to pick up food to do it. Or, he might be thinking, Here goes Mr. Legalism again! Whichever one of these responses match the grocery store owner, your problem as a teacher is not whether or not you’ve taught accurately God’s Word. Is it?

Why not? It is because there are obstacles inside of learners that prevent them from learning. All Christians carry baggage. Often, the sin inside of them can cling to pieces and portions of their past and present. Someone may have had an abortion. another may have been raised by a single mother. These past experiences are still present in them. And it can certainly make a congregant tender to the touch in regard to those subjects. They bristle out of fear and do not want you to open up a can of worms in them.

Another person may be giving in to pornography daily. And, it is almost guaranteed there are gossips, backbiters, the proud and self-righteous within the Church.4 They likely feel guilty. Your teaching is bound to add to it.

Then there is the guy who considers himself more doctrinally pure (more Scripturally astute) than you. He’s listened in the past to something you taught, that he did not agree with, something “important” to him. So, he wonders, what could you possibly add to my knowledge since you’ve blown it on that other matter? Or he lies in wait, what else will you compromise of God’s Word? Such a one will not learn much from you, and he will quickly be perturbed by any noticeable “shortcomings.”

I hope you’re beginning to see that even if you’re the clearest expositor in the city, it won’t matter if people don’t want to hear God on a given matter. And, oftentimes, a fellow believer’s sin, and guilt, or pride and unwillingness to repent, will quickly close you down. So teaching is one thing, but having someone learn what you’re trying to teach is quite another.

You will find, however, if elders stick around and faithfully teach, whole congregations can be transformed by it. Of course, some will leave. And sometimes it could be in small clusters. Do not be discouraged. It might be that they were the tares among the wheat.5 In that case it is actually healthy when Jesus decides to pull them out. The wheat will usually learn and obey and become more mature. This leads to greater joy within the congregation, and people will begin to look forward more and more to worshiping and fellowshipping together. Maturity is attractive to those who are being saved.

Thankfully, God gives us the concept that His Word will not come back void.6

In some the Word will be effective and in others it will actually act as a hardening agent. Jesus said this was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah, that some will hear the truth but not perceive it. And then Jesus said, “But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.”7

So, though sin can be an obstacle to a learner, there are blessed learners too. Their eyes are not being blurred by sin, nor are their ears blocked up. They will be the ones who actually benefit from your teaching. And they will act upon it.

So what is a teacher to do? Paul told Timothy, “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.”8

You go about teaching, is what you do. You be patient too. God will need to do the work in His people for you to succeed as a teacher. I remember years ago, an older pastor colleague telling me, “All I can do is preach faithfully God’s Word. The rest is up to Him.”9

So then, an elder should work hard at studying the Word. He should also labor to clearly present it to others. But along with both of these, he will have to prayerfully rely on God for any fruitfulness.

Oh, and one more thing. You, wannabe elder, you have sin in you as well. And this can greatly hinder you as a teacher.

The origin of both the believer and unbeliever is their humanity. All people are made in God’s image. This is incredible. It is something no one can cast off. It is something believers and unbelievers have in common.

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There was a greater realization of the beauty of being made in God’s image. Our first parents felt the joy and contentment of it. But then they mucked it up by their sin. And since then, we have all been born wearing their stupid new, designer, autonomous lens sunglasses.

It’s worse than that. We are all born wanting to wear them.

Thankfully, God intervened and adopted some people and un-cemented the sunglasses from off of their faces. These are called His people. They are the Christians. The Christian can now see without the yellow lens, but it certainly takes a while for a Christian’s eyes to adjust to the brilliance of light. In fact, adjusting to this new seeing ability lasts a lifetime.

Perhaps a better metaphor is to say the Christian has been unshackled from the cuffs that held him captive. His old autonomous mind and reason have been broken-up. This is what Paul means when he writes, “But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.”1

With either metaphor, for the believer’s ability to see and make sense of the world, over the unbeliever, it is “Advantage Christian.” or “Game-Set-and Match, McEnroe!”

Cornelius Van Til refers to the post-Eden, fallen Adam, as “the new man”. This is not to be confused with Paul’s use of the new man as a description of the Christian after conversion.

Van Til calls the fallen man the “new man” in contrast to the original glorious man in whom God’s image and purpose was still whole. Then Van Til tells the Christian to challenge the Non-believer by appealing to the original man that somehow lingers within.2

This is what Van Til writes:

“One knows that there is hidden underneath the surface display of every man a sense of deity. One therefore gives that sense of deity an opportunity to rise in rebellion against the oppression under which it suffers by the new man of the covenant breaker. One makes no deal with the new man. One shows that on his assumptions all things are meaningless.”3

It is important to remember this commonality whenever we communicate with non-believers. We share something important. It is the most important part of our humanity. We are made in God’s image! They want to suppress this. We want to call it out. This becomes a huge tension factor in the teaching and learning process. Believers should lean into it.

So then this is what the commonality and the difference is between the Christian and the Non-Christian.

Non-Christian: Original Man (God’s image) ——New Autonomous Man (lingering sense of deity) ——- Cemented sunglasses

Christian: Original Man (God’s image) —— Old Autonomous Man ——— New Man in Christ with sunglasses removed (but ever adjusting to the light).

I still drove the same white, AMC Hornet, had the same parents, wore the same eighties style clothes, and I walked the same sidewalks to class between buildings at the University of Wisconsin - Superior campus. Now, however, I was looking for God’s meaning in things. I was measuring and weighing according to what God was showing me from His Word.

Somehow, I was now confident that the world all went together and that God would make it clear to me. Forty years later, I still feel that way, but I’m running out-of-time to get it all figured out. And, honestly, I feel like I’ve only seen the surface scratched.

Some of the delay is due to having learned some things that were not true and I had to unlearn them;2 also, I had refused to learn things because I didn’t want to know them, that is until God broke through my stubbornness;3 too, my sinful slothfulness and desire for ease wasted a lot of time;4 finally, God has taken to disciplining me for disobedience and that has muddled my mind on occasion.5

All this to say, believers do not see all things thoroughly, or clearly, or without impairment caused by sin. It is not just the unbeliever that gets blinded to knowledge and truth. The believer can be as well.

So what does it matter if you are a believer or an unbeliever when it comes to learning what is true and what is not true? Does a Christian have a knowledge advantage or doesn’t he? If both sin, and both can be self-deceived, then does either one come out ahead?

Our commonality with unbelievers is our humanity and our sin. The difference is God’s grace in regeneration. The unbeliever has not the Spirit of God to guide him into all truth. The believer does have God’s Spirit. Also, the Spirit wars inside of the Christian. He wars against the believer’s sin and self-will (a.k.a. autonomy). And the Spirit won’t let up. Whereas, the unbeliever has not the Spirit but remains fully autonomous with self-designed, yellow-tinted sunglasses cemented to his face. He will never take them off, except by God’s grace of regeneration.

So if the Christian and Non-Christian are playing tennis, then: “Favor McEnroe!”6 or better I say, “Advantage Christian.” However, you want to say it, it is in fact, “game-set-and match” for the Christian, because he is playing by the rules while the Non-Christian refuses to. In a real sense, the Non-Christian isn’t even playing the same game of life as the Christian.

Consider another game. A bunch of kids run outside for recess and decide to play a game of four square. Johnny is one of them. When Johnny enters the square, he starts to call out rules that no one has heard of before. He claims, “When the ball hits the line it is out!” He urges, “You can hit the ball twice, I tell you, with any part of your body, as long as it doesn’t hit the ground!” And on and on.

The others tell him, “That is not the way it goes.” But Johnny insists on playing by his rules. What’s worse, there becomes a sneaking suspicion that Johnny is simply making up the rules as he goes along to support his poor play. He is not at all playing the game as it is meant to be played, but he is pretending like he is in the right. At some point, if they go along with Johnny’s rules, the other children will come to realize they are no longer playing four-square at all.

In the same way, Christians must stand their ground for interpreting knowledge and truth according to what God says it is. They mustn’t allow the stubbornly defiant Non-believing Johnny’s of the world to go on pretending their interpretations are the correct ones.

Remember, sinful man is forever wanting things his way. He wants to decide. He will determine what is right or wrong for himself, so he thinks. He views everything from his inner man’s constitution. And so everything gets tainted. His sunglasses help him see all things as jaundice.7 The bottom line is that the Non-believer is determined to see the facts the way they will support his poor play.

Cornelius Van Til writes of the Non-Christian’s unrelenting suppression of truth:

“When working in the laboratory as scientists, men act as though they are not dealing with materials that belong to God. They are like a thief who, entering into your home and exploring all kinds of things within it, claims that the question of ownership of the house is of no concern to him. They are like those who go hunting in a woods clearly marked ‘No Gunning,’ without permission from the owner.”8

So the unbeliever is at a great disadvantage to the Christian because of his commitment to autonomy.9

This is what I wrote in the footnote: When I say both models have value, I say it hesitatingly. I do think certain question and answer techniques from the Greek model have helped men think harder in the world, though questions and answers were not absent from the Hebrew model. Also, I do not doubt that truth gets uncovered by non-believers, (like the Greeks and others) though I think, because of their unbelief, it is like finding a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that they are not sure where to put it. They have no picture to look at as their starting point (the box cover of the jigsaw puzzle) for they refuse the self-revealing Christian God. Nor do they submit their thoughts to Him, though He has established the final picture they are ultimately supposed to build toward.

Here is today’s post:

Some people think that un-believers and regenerated Christians stand on the same solid ground for obtaining knowledge. Having to do with all things involving the mind and matter, they argue that truth is truth. They contend that knowledge is available to all who want to learn it.

People who hold this position, of mankind and knowledge and the mind and matter, typically do not factor in the self-deceiving quality of a man’s sinful nature. Or, they do not think that someone, who is a sinner, is necessarily going to pervert and obscure knowledge to his own harm. Or, they are convinced that the knowledge that will be lost to the non-believer will only be knowledge pertaining to religion and spiritual matters, not to the material world in which they remain interested.

In other words, they do not agree that a Christian has an advantage over the non-Christian when it comes to such things as mathematics, science, chemistry, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, sociology, geology, astrology, archaeology, meteorology, neurology, zoology, or even theology when pressed on it. They see the facts of the universe as indiscriminately available to all.1

In a certain sense, God has made facts available to both believers and non-believers. However, God does discriminate. And neither group is allowed to do whatever they wish with His facts, as if they were given permission to define a thing.

When Adam named the creatures and birds in the garden, it became the thing’s name.2 A giraffe was now called a giraffe, a hippo became known as a hippo. However, Adam didn’t define what a hippo was. God defined the hippo. And the giraffe. And man for that matter!

Furthermore, this took place before the Fall of mankind. After the Fall, after the man and his wife decided to be pursue autonomy - and decide things for themselves - they and their offspring escalated efforts to redefine the creation. Their knowledge would need to originate with man, not God.

But this pursuit of redefinition, to worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, cannot occur without God changing man’s ability to think. The Apostle Paul speaks of this in Romans:

Romans 1:18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Romans Chapter 1 is hugely important for Christians’ understanding. You should really read the passage above again, for its appraisal of the unbeliever’s incapability to view the world, its facts, and knowledge (mind and matter) is enlightening.

When a man is ungodly and unrighteous, he intentionally suppresses truth. His thinking becomes futile, foolish, and darkened. To him, it is better that way.

Again, sinful man is motivated to redefine things. It is him wanting to drive his race car away from God, and God’s facts, into a wall if need be. Further, men actually join each other to do this concertedly. It is an UNSPOKEN agreement, but if stated out loud, it would sound very much like what Moses recorded for us in Genesis 11:4.

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”3

Mankind at Babel spoke clearly and defiantly. They planned in unison. However, unbelievers throughout history have usually kept their their inner-drive under wraps.

Jesus identifies it when he says, “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”4

How can an unbeliever be freed from himself and his thinking? I would have to agree with Cornelius Van Til, here.

He writes, “…It is precisely Reformed preaching and Reformed apologetic that tears the mask off the sinner’s face and compels him to look at himself and the world for what they really are. Like a mole the natural man seeks to scurry under ground every time the facts as they really are come to his attention. He loves the darkness rather than the light. The light exposes him to himself. And precisely this neither Roman Catholic nor Arminian preaching or reasoning is able to do.”5

The Hebrew, "shinan" (שִׁנַּן), approached the teaching and learning process from the perspective of man having received knowledge. Whereas the Greek, "paideia" (παιδαγωγία), approached the teaching and learning process more from the perspective of a man discovering knowledge.

I think both models have value, but also that the Hebrew model is mandatory to convey God’s knowledge and wisdom.1

I also believe that there is an important obstacle that interferes with our ability to gain true knowledge and to educate others. It is that, naturally, people don’t want to acquire knowledge, if it ends up handcuffing them to God. We are born turned against God. And we have no inclination to turn back to Him.

This predisposition (to act only according to the sinful nature) gets changed in a Christian, because God regenerates him. The change is real but it doesn’t completely remove a Christian’s unwillingness to learn from God. I think, as Christians, we can confess that from our personal experience with our sin and God. Sometimes we just don’t want to hear the truth.

The Apostle Paul talks about mankind’s bias mind in the first chapter of his letter to the Roman Church:

28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Paul also speaks to the Christian’s ability to choose against God’s knowledge and wisdom. A Christian, though he has God’s Spirit, can still deceive himself.

18Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” 21So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 22whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.2

So thinking of education at the ground level: you mustn’t start with man. You start with God. If you start with man, you never get to God, because you don’t want to!

If natural (sinful) man is put in the driver’s seat, he crashes his car into a wall and burns. He crashes intentionally, mind you, or else he might reach God at the finish line.

Whereas, if God is recognized as the giver of knowledge and wisdom, then the response is humble receptivity, gratitude, and a desire to submit to the Heavenly Father and learn more. This is not simply a humble receptivity of God’s gift of special revelation (the Bible), but also of His gift of general revelation (found in every detail of His creation).

Of course, as we saw earlier, those kinds of responses require a supernatural change3 in the learner (and human teachers as well). This supernatural work, though, will not completely erase the necessity for the learner and the teacher to guard against lingering sin and deception during the educational process.

If you recognize that God is in the driver’s seat of education, then you’ll be like a child who sits on his father’s lap, and learns from him, and loves him. You will even understand that his discipline is meant for your good.

If you think that mankind is the finder of facts and the determiner of truth, then you’ll be like the child that is set on the father’s lap but wishes to pull away from him and get down to the floor and scurry off.4

From the Greeks, we get the term, Paideia. The word "paideia" (παιδαγωγία) refers to the process of teaching and learning associated with the cultivation of virtue and the development of the soul. It describes an education that worked to encompass a broad cultural and intellectual formation in the student, including moral, physical, and intellectual development. Paideia was an approach to teaching particular to the philosophical concerns of Plato and Aristotle and others.

For the Greeks, man was the starting point. Gaining knowledge started with him and worked its way outward. According to Scripture, the non-Christian is without God in the world.1 So you can imagine that the way a non-Christian tries to make sense of the world would be different from people who had God telling them things.

The Hebrews used the word, Shinan. The word "shinan" (שִׁנַּן) means "to teach diligently" or "to sharpen." It emphasizes a method of teaching that involves repetition and deep internalization, much like sharpening a blade to make it effective and useful.

"Shinan" has a specific religious and familial context that emphasizes the internalization of commandments and teachings. The Hebrews were described as the People of the Book. They believed God had told them what to do and that it was their duty to learn what He said and obey it. Knowledge started with God.

I will get most of my direction from the Old Testament and New Testament writers in regard to an approach for teaching.

You’ve got to read his books. Some are books you can easily tackle. Others are complete volumes that you will take down from your shelf only to read, as needed, a chapter here and a section there.

In the book, The Academic Captivity of Theology,1 Dr. Frame divides the requirements for ministry into three categories: character, skills, and knowledge.2 He points out that most of the requirements have to do with character: husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money, not conceited, thought of well by outsiders, etc.

In the category of skills, he puts management abilities, and the ability to teach. Both are mentioned by the Apostle Paul, “He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household well, how will he care for God’s church?”3 Also, “Therefore an overseer must be…able to teach.”4

For the category of knowledge, Frame writes, “Knowledge is mainly a knowledge of the Gospel, the prerequisite of teaching…One must know enough to be able to preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. (2 Timothy 4:2)”

Don't be distracted by this note, but you’ll find it interesting. Frame attaches a footnote to this last point about knowledge. He says, “We may be surprised that Scripture never imposes on ministers “educational requirements” of college or university-level knowledge, the kinds of knowledge considered necessary to ministry by many present-day churches. (This does not mean Frame takes thinking lightly, but he does think that we give the wrong amount of respect and power to academia.)

I say all this to make the point that while you are aspiring, while you are waiting, you have much to do. Most of what God wants you to do is to become a better man on the inside. He wants you to grow in character. God intends to sanctify and transform you into His office-bearer. So, of first order, you should invest your time and effort and heart to love God and others.

The skills of managing your household and teaching will come somewhat naturally. You get to begin on a small scale. An apartment with one wife. One job. Maybe one child. You’d do well to be the proud owner of a used car. Get a carseat. Manage that.

Then, also, learn how to teach them. If you can teach a child, you are being an effective teacher. As they grow, so will your teaching skills. Eventually, your kids will be adults. Teaching your wife is likely going to be more difficult. She’s smarter. The subject matter is weightier. And the interaction can be filled with sin and emotion sometimes. So marry a kind, patient and forgiving woman. And don’t be too proud to learn from her.

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Here is some important advice: Don’t get a dog right away.

That’s a joke. If you like dog hair and can afford dog food and don’t mind picking up after it,5 then get a dog if you want. I remember a mentor of mine. I was in college. He had a wife, a dog, and a house. No children yet. He told me the reason he liked having a dog was because, from it, he was learning how it would be to teach and discipline a child.

He was grilling hamburgers in his driveway as he was telling me this and the dog began to bark so loudly and obnoxiously, that he yelled the dog’s name with great authority and threw a large stick at it. I asked him if that was going to be his technique as a dad. The humor was not lost on him. It was pretty funny.

If you aspire to be an elder, but then bide your time and simply build carefully from smaller to larger over the course of your life, the skills will come along with it. Don't take short cuts; build with brick not cardboard. It takes longer, but it’s better. Learn to take responsibility for all the things God has entrusted to you. And find pleasure in the fact that there is so much you are NOT responsible for, yet.

God watches. He supervises. He advances His kingdom and builds His Church. And He often says to this person and that one, “You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much.”6

As for knowledge, yes, this takes time too. So why not increase it little-by-little, line upon line. Each day you can learn. Read the Bible and books and listen to podcasts and audiobooks and sermons; live life and worship and experience sweat and trials and celebrations, etc. Also, know this, many don’t want to learn the truth of things.7

If you do, then you’re on your way! Your greatest learning and all the increase of your knowledge has this goal: You should want to think God’s thoughts after Him.8 (In other words, you should want to see and understand God and His creation as He made it to be.)

John Frame writes, “The only kind of knowledge of Scripture that really counts is heart-knowledge. That is a knowledge of Scripture that includes understanding how to apply it to oneself. Through that, the student can teach by example as well as by word.”9

Knowledge is most sweet when you internalize it, when you know it in your heart and not just your head. It is also more readily received by the one you are trying to share it with, because they see it is meaningful to you. They know your’e not faking it, or regurgitating someone else’s words, or going through the motions. When you have taken truth into your soul as the teacher it gives your students assurance. You are teaching them because you want what is best for them.

And I should not have to tell you, neither knowledge nor wisdom can exist apart from the fear of the LORD.

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction." Proverbs 1:7

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight." Proverbs 9:10

It is too easy common for a person to make foolish short-sighted decisions. Strive to play the long game.

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Remember, the word “aspire” means stretches forward to. It means to be strongly inclined toward something, to be pulled toward it. So if that describes you, if you are inclined toward, or are being pulled toward the office of elder, then how should that translate into your daily decisions?

I’ve already spent time discussing the centrality of what Jesus called the two most important commands: to Love God first and then others. Obedience to those commands requires the investment of your whole being: body and soul. If you love Jesus, He says, “You will keep My commandments.”

So then, love requires us to mortify sin and to pursue righteousness. God wants us to obey and not disobey. It is the Holy Spirit’s intention to sanctify us with His Word, and we should make it our goal. Daily. Prayerfully.

This commitment to love, will make us better people: better workers, better neighbors, better husbands, and better fathers. And as mentioned previously, these are noble tasks. They are worth doing and improving upon.

For eg. A man who wants to be a better father will need to spend time with his children. He will become intentional about it. It will become important to him that his children are educated to read-write-speak-and do numbers; he will want teach them how to work (without complaining), and to show respect toward other people, to be kind, to apologize, to pray and worship. These things are important things for a father (and mother) to impress.

And it should go without saying, that a good father will, himself, DO the things he believes are vital for his child to learn. He will show, not just say.1 His kids will expect it, especially as they get older. There is little tolerance for parental hypocrisy. A father WILL lead by example: either a good example or a bad one. And if you want to be a good one, then you have to be intentional about the parental blueprint by which you plan to build.

In the same way, someone who aspires to be an elder will need to stretch forward to or be pulled toward the office with the use of a blueprint. The blueprint will inform him as to how to build himself. And if he is ordained into the office, then that same blueprint will remind him what responsible elders do.

Godly character traits will need to be developed in the man, but not perfected. Perfection is not possible. “Improvement” and “refinement” are better words than “perfection,” when we speak of characteristics like: sober-mindedness, self-control, respectable, hospitable, gentleness, and so forth. Improvements and refinement are words that agree with the idea of sanctification over time.

Yet there are some necessary daily decisions that a man should make in order to prepare himself for the future potential of eldership.

1. If he is going to be made responsible to “care for God’s church,” then he best work at being responsible as a manager of his own household.2

2. If he is warned against being a “lover for money,” then he will have to learn, along the way, not to spend it frivolously on selfish desires, but to use money as a tool for God’s kingdom.3

3. If he should be “able to teach,” in order to be an elder, then he should prepare himself by learning. This will involve the regular reading of God’s Word along with books by other biblical teachers. It will also involve learning to follow the rules by which God’s Word is respected. It will also be necessary to develop the skills of a teacher; the best way to do that is by practicing on people.4

Dad shaves his face daily; his son wants the electric razor held to his chin too. Dad drives away to work; his son waves and runs after him up to the edge of the yard until the car is out-of-sight. Dad ties a tie around his neck for Sunday morning worship; his son clips a miniature one to his shirt. A dad will always leave his mark. And these are just the little ways.

Being a father is a noble task. So is being a husband. For a boy turning into a man, both of these are God’s primary assignments.1 God expects a young husband (and father) to learn to be responsible for people, for souls. If the man lacks maturity, that’s about to change. At least if he wants to be a godly man, it will.

I thank God that He gave to me a mature wife, Tracy. She provided strength where I was weak. She was an organizer, a list-keeper, a planner, and she was beautiful! She brought all of that into our marriage at the age of nineteen.

I was twenty-one, and did not possess her maturity. Here’s a sample of my way: I’d only decide to pack a suitcase for a weekend trip five minutes before it was time to leave. I once had someone waiting in the driveway for me while I was jamming two pairs of clean socks in a bag and wondering if I should bring my toothbrush. (I’m sure I didn’t own a suitcase. It would’ve been a gym bag or maybe a paper grocery bag.)

Who would marry someone like that?! It is my experience that most women do. I needed to grow up. I relied an awful lot on my wife to orchestrate things for us.2 Tracy was wonderful. She was a great prize. Still is.

Thankfully, I was an up-and-comer. Raw, but I had potential. We all do. Paul gives expression to this hope when he writes to the Philippians, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”3

Here is what I think. A young man should aspire to be godly as a person. He should then aspire to be a good husband. Then a good father. But we all start somewhere. A tree develops rings over years. You can’t judge its potential by what first shoots out of the ground. But it should keep reaching up.

From the beginning of our marriage, I aspired to be a godly husband and father. I wanted to improve. But I had a lot to change in me. And though I’ve referred to some basic skills like organization, planning, and list-keeping as signs of maturity, there are deeper immaturities that need to be fixed as well. The deeper ones are deadlier. They are vices. Vices harm others. They hinder the young husband’s headship. They sour a child’s impression of his father. So much for wanting to dress like dad, if dad is a slanderer of other people, or cheater in transactions, or a tyrant over mom.

You may aspire to be an elder. And it is a good thing. In fact, I get energized when I see a younger Christian really want to live for God. I also have come to realize, though, how much work needs to be accomplished to grow them to maturity. Deeper work. Steadfast work. They need many rings in the trunk of their tree before they can support the branches for the birds to nest and the beasts to find shelter.4

Those rings develop over time. They appear when we determine to love God and others, love our wives and children, and maintain a proper pursuit of dominion. All the while we prayerfully depend on God to turn our vices into virtues.

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The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.

This verse does not appear to be an open invitation. The phrase, “If anyone aspires,” is an “if,” not a should. Paul did not write, “everyone should aspire,” as if it were a Christian duty. It might stand to reason, that a godly person would want to pursue the noble task of the office of overseer.

I would want my sons to hold the office when they’re older. Yet sometimes God has different plans for His people. And it does not make them less important to God or the Church. It is also true that God uses Christian teachers in many arenas, without them ever holding office. Many women, for instance, have been effective influences for the good of the church without the authority and responsibility of the office.1

Furthermore, the “anyone who” will be quickly qualified by Paul in the next sentences to prevent the unprepared. Not everyone will be fit for the task. Character traits must be evident in the one who aspires to the office. Things like: gentleness, not loving money, being hospitable, acting as a good manager of his household, etc.2

Desiring to share the things God’s taught you is a good quality. Being a good teacher is helpful. Yet neither trait is sufficient. The office is more demanding. It involves people. It requires the controlling of yourself in time and space. You will need to be aware of other households. You will need to keep a godly perspective under difficult circumstances. You mustn’t drop the ball. There are no breaks. You will need to love.

The office of overseer (presbyter, elder) demands you invest your life for the sake of others. It is much more than preaching sermons and leading bible studies.3

So “aspiring” to be an elder might NOT be for everyone. But what does it look like in a person?

The word aspire is translated from the Greek word: ὀρέγεται (oregetai). It means stretches forward to. If anyone stretches forward to the office of elder. ὀρέγεται is also defined as to be strongly inclined toward something. It is to be pulled towards something. So, if anyone is inclined toward, or is being pulled towards the office of elder, “he desires a noble task.”

The subject of the sentence is the man who aspires to be an elder. The office is the object the man stretches to. He is pulled toward it. He would like to take on the task. He is willing to bear the office. More than willing; he is inwardly compelled.

Some men would rather push the office away. They cringe at the thought of carrying that kind of burden. “No. Thank you very much!” Yet, then one will be strongly inclined to sign up to serve with the local fire department. And another might stretch forward to work with assembly line machinery. Or a third will find he pulls toward artistic expression.

Make no mistake. I am not comparing hobbies or occupations to the church office. I am only describing the sensation of aspiration. Aspiration is a strong desire, a longing, an ambition.

Finally, any man, who aspires to such a burden-ladened task, ought to do so soberly. Eyes wide open. There may be a handful of men in your church today who aspire to be an overseer, but they are not ready for it. You may be one of them. Give it time. Keep aspiring for a couple more decades. Stick to your knitting and leave it in God’s hands.

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Before Christ, my eyes worked fine, but I couldn't see things as they really existed. My mind hardly went beyond the tips of my fingers and the things in front of my nose. Life was the way it was. What you could see and touch is what you had to work with.

Sure, Church and God and the Bible and prayer and Jesus were a part of something we did as a family, but it was simply a closet of the house. We kept it to Sunday mornings, table graces, and nighttime prayers. The house was the rest of the secular world and even out into the cosmos (for which I had little interest and no imagination).

In my childhood, I concluded that the house was so much bigger than one closet. In fact, I didn’t even need to go into the closet to get most of my things done.

But in my college years, after becoming a newborn mouse, I was starting to see it differently. I was beginning to realize that the Church, God, the Bible, prayer and Jesus were the house. Or should I say they were the foundation upon which the whole house stood and was held together.

My point is, I was learning to see things differently. And when a thing became new to me, I immediately wanted to share it with my family and friends. I loved them. What else should I have done?

In the coming pages, I want to dig around on a sentence Paul wrote to Timothy. He wrote:

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.1

My hope would be that everyone reading my words would aspire to do noble things for the LORD. Of course, not everyone can become an overseer in the church. The requirements that Paul lists, after the verse above, describe characteristics that can only be recognized in the life over time. Elders should be older.

But that is OK. We’ve all got time. And plenty of other noble tasks to perform while we aspire to someday hold the office.

I reflect as I think back to the start of my Christian walk. Here are a few sobering thoughts for little mice who love God:

1. It is good when God teaches you things.

2. It is good to share those things with others.2

3. It is good to have a heart that wants what is good, even though others might not agree with all that you call good. (And, truth be told, some of those “disagreers” may be other mice from your Church community.)

4. It is good to learn that some of the things you think God taught you, are not from God. You can be wrong.

5. It is good to be a humble young man, and old man, though it is difficult.

6. It is good to grow up over time. To take the necessary time to prove responsible with the things God entrusts to you. To hold down a job. To learn. To make decisions and experience the outcomes of those decisions. To raise a family, God willing. (All of these will help you understand the challenges of micedom.)

7. It is good to aspire to be an elder, for it is a noble task.

I figure, if the person I’m reading has good things to say, then the people he quotes probably have even better things to say. Or they’re of equal value.

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This reasoning led me to Helmut Thielicke’s book, A Little Exercise For Young Theologians. I learned of it while reading Michael Reeves’s book, Rejoice and Tremble. Reeves wrote, “Thus Helmut Thielicke warned his theological students of the vain stage of ‘theological puberty’ many go through after a year or two of study. In that stage, infatuated with new theological concepts, the young theologian is filled with gnostic pride. His love dies in the devilish thrill of acquiring a knowledge that means power. Then this skewed knowledge proves its own perversity in his character as he becomes a graceless theological thug, ever itching for a chance to show off his prowess. And it is hardly as if older theologians are immune to this disease. We who love theology need to remember that there is no true knowledge of God where there is no right fear of him.”1

The concept of theological puberty sold me. I had to buy Thielicke’s, A Little Exercise For Young Theologians. And I read it. It is short, 74 pages. It can be read in two short sittings. It’s cheap too, $10. Audible has it for less than $4 if you’d rather to listen to it.2

Thielicke was a conservative, Lutheran theologian. He wrestled plenty with the thinking of his day, which was often swimming in the pool of existentialism (engaging the work of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche). He lived at the same as another Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Both men wrote on the challenges of living out the Christian faith in a secular world.

The neo-orthodox3 theologian, Karl Barth, influenced Thielicke’s thinking quite a bit. While Thielicke respected Barth's emphasis on the sovereignty of God and the primacy of revelation in Jesus Christ, he also offered critiques of Barth's dialectical method4 and his tendency to downplay the importance of human reason and natural theology.

So I read the book. It is was written for seminarians and graduates as they embarked into the Church to take up the responsibilities of shepherding the flock. Throughout it, Thielicke warns against pride and encourages the need to be circumspect. He uses some great metaphors.

For instance, in a chapter called, The Theological Change of Voice, which continues on the theme of puberty, Thielicke writes of the need for the young theologian to grow spiritually in order to catch up with his intellectual growth. In other words, he might know some things and take them for granted, yet men of the past had to suffer to learn them and to hammer them out onto paper.

He writes, “There is a hiatus between the arena of the young theologian’s actual spiritual growth and what he already knows intellectually about this arena. So to speak, he has been fitted, like a country boy, with breeches that are too big, into which he must still grow up in the same way that one who is to be confirmed must also grow into the long trousers of the Catechism. Meanwhile, they hang loosely around his body, and this ludicrous sight of course is not beautiful.”5

It is easy to picture the young graduate who still lives in a body somewhere between boyhood and mature man. It is indeed a dilemma. Most older pastors will concur, that as a younger man he desired to learn the truth, and God’s Word and theologians helped open his mind to many things, but that he needed a couple extra decades of life’s experiences and challenges to confirm and correct his convictions. Is that something a 23-year old has acquired? Probably not. (Although, 61-year olds haven’t completely arrived either.)

Yet, the thought I had as I read Thielicke’s words was, Wouldn’t it be better for a side-by-side growth of the man with his theology before he was expected to become a pastor? Is this not one of the advantages that elders6 were meant to be older men in the faith, having governed their households well?

The challenge of the office is that it requires godliness coupled with longer life experience. It takes time. Throughout a man’s life God embosses His Word into the metal of the man. It is unfair to expect a younger man to have been impressed this way. He needs time. Thielicke is correct when he writes about the need for “passing through” your own primary experiences and not simply conceptual ones.

He also reasons that someone could write a lecture about Luther and expound upon his theological significance, but hardly know anything about what God taught Luther. So, it is NOT enough to receive the “literary or intellectual deposit of what another’s primary experience, say Luther’s, has discovered.” If this is the stockyard from which your faith is drawn, it is living “second hand.”7

It is a good caution that Christians do not imagine themselves vibrant, courageous, and faithful based upon the books they read or the podcasts to which they listen. Build your faith with God and His Word by primary experience. Live!

Here is one more analogy. Thielicke talks about the study of the theologian being like the study of a geologist. His work consists of the mineralogical analyses of stone, geographical formations, maps, graphs, a set of tables, etc. However, if the geologist does not comprehend the significance and beauty of a mountain for himself, then for what purpose is he studying?

Yet, the young theologian drilling down on historical arguments and traversing meandering theological details and taking sides in historical debates can become like the geologist who is only dealing in the parts and pieces but missing the reason. Such a man is going to be at a disadvantage and “hardly in a position to comprehend at all what the Alps are.”

Thielicke recommends, “We are working here as if we were in a mineralogical laboratory. But so far as the classification of knowledge is concerned, it is all wrong unless you yourself climb the mountains and breathe the air up there.”8

In a chapter called, Pathology of the Young Theologian’s Conceit, he warns that theology can make the young man vain. He says, “Truth seduces us very easily into a kind of joy of possession: I have comprehended this and that, learned it, understood it. Knowledge is power. I am therefore more than the other man who does not know this and that. I have greater possibilities and also greater temptations. Anyone who deals with truth - as we theologians do - succumbs all too easily to the psychology of the possessor. But love is the opposite of the will to possess. It is self-giving. It boasteth not itself, but humbleth itself.”

Thielicke goes on, “Now it is almost a devilish thing that even in the case of the theologian the joy of possession can kill love. It is devilish because the truth of theology is concerned with the very love of God, with his coming down, his search, his care for souls.”9

Finally, on page 67, he writes, “Whoever ceases to be a man of the spirit automatically furthers a false theology, even if in thought it is pure, orthodox, and basically Lutheran. But in that case death lurks in the kettle…Theology is a very human business, a craft, and sometimes an art…that depends upon the hands and hearts which further it.”10

I recommend the book as a help for self-sobriety. Pull it off the shelf when you think you might be getting a little ahead yourself.

Yet the Apostles taught us to imitate godly people. And it was expected that elders would be the ones leading the sheep by their exemplary lives.

Of course, there are some in Church leadership that probably shouldn’t be. It was certainly the case in Jesus’ day. Consider this from Matthew 23:1-12.

1Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, 3so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. 4They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. 5They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, 6and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues 7and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. 8But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. 9And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. 10Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. 11The greatest among you shall be your servant. 12Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

A good elder lives what he teaches and he teaches what is sound and biblical.

But there are some bad elders too. And they are not necessarily easy to spot. They could look a lot like the scribes and Pharisees. They pour themselves into study. They are exhilarated by it; to think hard and to wrestle with the Word of God is like breathing the air to them. They read, learn, debate, and even expound upon the Bible with some effectiveness. They love to instruct. And they enjoy effectively influencing other Christians.

Yet these bad elders have a problem. It is a disconnect between their studiousness and a real love for God and their brothers and sisters. They prefer knowledge to people. They prefer power to service. And they’d sooner talk behind someone’s back than give someone the shirt off of theirs.

Yet, we know God says, the two most important commands are to love Him with all of your heart, soul, and mind. And then secondly, to love your neighbor as yourself. The problem of the bad elder is that he gets honed in on the last love, the one he already has for himself. And then the first two never get paid their proper attention.

I knew a man named Micah, newly married, who couldn’t find a church to join. He and his wife visited a few, but none were suitable. Why? It was because none of them measured up to what he thought a church should be and do.1 He was a studier. He read a lot. He knew theology. He most admired the historic Scottish Covenanters for having “figured things out” and for “holding the line.”

There were no local churches of this flavor anywhere. And it so happened that he and his wife never attended Church. They quit trying to find one to match his views. This meant they did not have the regular experience of worshiping God with a body of believers, along with its fellowship, the checks and balances of other Christians.

Instead, Micah led his wife in worship at home. The thing is, with the build-up of all of his internalized knowledge, it became glaringly obvious to Micah that his wife didn’t measure up to God’s standards either. And so he preached and she was supposed to learned. One might say he “lovingly” washed her with the water of the Word. She would say it was more like a drowning. The scrutiny was too great for her to bear. You might guess the result.

The Apostle Paul warns, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”2

This brings me back to elders. Bad elders would rather win a debate than win a brother. They are quick to fight for truth, which seems noble, but the fight usually goes on inside the church and rarely out in the world, where the enemies of Christ are legion.3 A bad elder will judge the flock and dismiss those who do not comply with his views. And if, by chance, the bad elder does not get what he is after, or his particular issue does NOT go the way he wants, he abandons the Church as unworthy. It is easy for a bad elder to “shake the dust off his feet” and leave. For him, it is simply another act of righteousness. It would be beneath him, and his service to God, to stand by and tolerate “a compromised teaching!”4

Paul describes love’s character and a bad elder ought to learn this teaching:

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.”5

Oh! for a Church filled with such people: elders, deacons and all the members. Where love reigns and people are FOR people, not against people. Where they are patient. Where they don’t insist on getting their way.

Paul was such an Apostle. He offered up his body a living sacrifice. He labored in the Word. He taught truthfully whether opposed or unopposed, in season and out of season. He did not think of himself more highly than he ought. And he gave his time to laboring with his own hands and body, all while he built up the church. He was also skilled in tent-building. What did Paul’s exemplary life look like? It looked like someone who did not count himself first. It looked like someone who was willing to work with his own hands and not be a burden. It looked like someone who might correct a brother because of his love for Christ and the brother.

Paul told the the elders of Ephesus, "I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"6

This was Paul’s advice to the shepherds (the elders). He was leaving the area and they would see him no longer, and what does he tell them? “I’ve shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak…” This was the example he gave to them, while encouraging them that they should be such an example to others. It is more blessed to give than to receive.

How do you know when NOT to imitate a Church leader? Perhaps when his love meter is 90% for truth and 10% for loving the sheep. Even if he loves the truth 60% and the sheep 40%, he might be tipping in the wrong direction. I say, give me the guy that loves the sheep at 49% and truth at 51%. Just a thought?!

But it is simple. Idiot-like. If you do not love God primarily and people secondarily, then you have missed the point. And you are not an elder that people should follow. So if you aspire to be a shepherd of others, then first make work of loving God and people.

Furthermore, it will take time. You will need to grow up in your faith. And do I even need to say it? But no schooling degree, or years of seminary training, will make you a lover of God and men. Only years of life spent with God and His Word will prepare you.

It was important for the church to hear. Some outside the church have appreciated it as well. However, it was taxing on me. Good, but taxing.

Please feel free to listen to those sermons starting here. And maybe share them with someone struggling with these issues.

https://tinysa.com/sermon/1212417174660

I was also quite busy with my work as a business owner, salesman, sales manager. Customers have needs. Co-workers have them as well.

My next post will publish this Thursday at 6AM. It will be the last one from my chapter: On The Most Important Commands.

Then on the following Monday, I will post a Book Review: A Little Exercise For Young Theologians, by Helmut Thielicke. It was a book that the professor wrote for his seminary and graduate students, so that they would be warned NOT to get ahead of themselves, puffed up with pride, or lose the spirit or purpose of theological and pastoral work. I think you will like it.

Following the review I will begin my next chapter: It is called, On Aspiring.

The chapter will grow from what Paul wrote to Timothy, “The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.” I would imagine most of you reading my posts, do indeed, aspire to serve God at some level, and maybe as an elder in Christ’s Church someday.

Anyway, I’m back. I hope you are still here!