Pastor’s Perspective

Thank you for reading “Pastor’s Perspective.”  Hopefully it was helpful to you and hopefully God was glorified through this blog.  This will be the last post.  Thanks again and God bless. - Jon

Just watched a video clip from The Gospel Coalition on pastoral mentoring.  Good ideas for those involved in pastoring or wanting to become pastors.  See video here: Pastoral Mentoring.

In the news today is a man who serves meals to hungry day laborers every night at 9:30 PM in New York.  He doesn’t make much money as a bus driver, but is a dedicated servant, having delievered meals nightly for over three years.  He’s called an “Angel in Queens.”  You can visit the website http://www.anangelinqueens.org/user/bio/ or check out this video: Serve Whoeheartedly.  I don’t know much about his faith background, other than he has a picture of Jesus on his kitchen door, as well as a cross, but seeing this puts a face on what it means to “serve wholeheartedly” (Ephesians 6:7a).

I’m reading a book called Understanding Iraq by William R. Polk.  In the book, Polk writes about how the Mongols, under the leadership of Ghengis Khan’s grandson Hulagu, sacked and ravaged the city of Baghdad in the year 1258.  Hulagu then slaughthered thousands of Bahgdadis in awful and mind-numbing cruelty. 

Polk then asks about this carnage, “Why did the Mongols do it?”  He replies, “The best answer, I believe, is that they were trying to reduce the whole of Asia to the only kind of economy they knew, nomadic herding.” 

Really?  Nomadic Herding??  Is that the “best answer”? 

Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?”  Pillaging conquerors who destroy cities don’t come out of nowhere.  They are influenced by greed and deceived in their heart.  Some are organized enough to commit great acts of violence for their own gain.  The atrocities of Hulagu and others should be a wake up call that sin is real and that our hearts need to be cleansed.

Jesus Christ comes to cleanse us from all unrighteousness if we confess our sins (I John 1:9). 

Ephesians 5:22-33.  Which one is more difficult?  Submitting (wives submitting to their husbands) or loving (husbands loving their wives as Christ loves the church)?  They both play into reversing the curse of Genesis 3:16b

[To the woman] “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” 

Ephesians gives us a redeemed look at marriage where the husband loves his wife and the wife respects her husband.  When we do this, we avoid the “Crazy Cycle” talked about by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs in his book Love and Respect: The Love She Most Desires, The Respect He Desperately Needs. 

May the Lord help us to demonstrate genuine love and respect.

1. God
2. Man
3. Christ
4. Response

These are the core elements to understanding and explaining the Good News (the Gospel) and the two roads that we can travel in life.  It’s a simple outline, but it can help us see God and His holiness, as well as who we are and our sinfulness (our need) before we appreciate the Good News.  Without understanding our need for repentance, Christianity doesn’t make sense. 

Matthias Media* points out, there are two roads before all of us “God’s road and our road.”  Once we grasp the holiness of God and sinfulness of man, one way is made clear: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” - Luke 18:13b

*Matthias Media is a reformed, evangelical publishing house based in Australia.  Please view their introductory video here: Matthias Media

I learned the initial outline from Mark Dever at CHBC.

Here is a list of my favorite preachers (difficult to rank, so this is a general list, including geographic location of ministry):

1. John Piper, Minneapolis, MN
2. CJ Mahaney, Gaithersburg, MD
3. Michael Bullmore, Bristol, WI
4. Crawford Loritts, Roswell, GA
5. Don Carson, Deerfield, IL
6. Erwin Lutzer, Chicago, IL
7. Mark Dever, Washington, DC
8. Mark Driscoll, Seattle, WA
9. John Stott, London, UK
10. Tim Keller, New York, NY

*picture above is C. H. Spurgeon preaching at Surrey Music Hall in London

“This is why it says: ‘When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men.’”              -Ephesians 4:8 (reference to Psalm 68:18)

“When you ascended on high, you led captives in your train; you received gifts from men….”                          -Psalm 68:18a

What are we to make of this?  The quote reads “gave,” but the Psalm says “received” (the person is also changed - third/second).

Derek Kidner, well-known scholar on the Psalms, points out that in this Psalm, God shares the victory with his people (his loyal supporters).  E. E. Ellis writes that “God…shares with them the booty of His victory” (from Morris, Expository Reflections on the Letter to the Ephesians).

P. T. O’Brien, the Australian scholar, presents five views of this difficulty in his Pillar New Testament Commentary on Ephesians.  It is worth glancing over.  At the end of the day, he writes, “None of the above-mentioned suggestions fully solves this difficult crux.”  As Christians, we have to be honest when we see a difficulty.  We should be familiar with these difficult questions of the Bible so that we are not caught off guard by someone trying to disprove the Bible using something like this.  We can still be confident that God uses Psalmists and Apostles to accomplish His purposes through the written Word of God, even when we might not get it right away.  One of the main points in Ephesians 4 is that we are not tossed back and forth by the waves or by the wind, like infants.  Rather, we must grow up to maturity, putting our confidence in Christ and keeping Him central.  We should also look for the main point of the passage, and if we find ourselves consumed with a detail that takes us away from the main point, let us then return to the big idea that is clear, working out from there.

O’Brien then lands on the interpretive link with Numbers 8, Numbers 18, Psalm 68 and Ephesians 4 - similar to God taking and receiving the Levites as a gift, then giving them back to his people in order to minister to the congregation (O’ Brien, p. 293). 

As a practical application, it makes sense that God both gives us gifts in order that we use those gifts to His glory (i. e. offer gifts back to Him).  May we continue to offer gifts to God out of the gifts He has already given us.  Soli Deo gloria.

This is what Jesus tells Paul concerning a “thorn in the flesh.”  It is when we are weak that Christ can be seen most clearly.  Please check out this link to a YouTube video on Nick Vujicic - a Christian believer who has no arms and no legs, but a passion to live his life for Christ.  Nick Vujicic

Ephesians 4 tells us that rather than being infants, “tossed back and forth by the waves…Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.”  In his book, Speaking Truth in Love, David Powlison writes about how the average person uses 20,000 words per day. 

“All of us have experienced how an insightful, humane voice can work for good in our lives.  (And certainly all of us have experienced how false or callous voices have harmful effects.)  It is a fine thing when another human being takes you seriously.  Someone wants to know how you are really doing, listens to what you say, and cares enough to respond constructively, saying what is both true and helpful.  By word and deed in relationship, one person truly helps another” (Powlison, p. 5).

Let’s be a people who boldly speak truth in the manner of humble love, seeking to truly help others in Christ.