Pure Church

A boasting pastor is a hard thing to withstand.

A man in the pulpit that is taken with high estimations of himself and his efforts will shortly shipwreck the faith of others and perhaps crash on the jagged rocks of humiliation himself. Pride goes before a fall. God opposes the proud. It's horrifying to contemplate the opposition of God poured out against one of His ambassadors.

And, therefore, it's surprising to find the Apostle Paul boasting. If there is anything worse than a boasting pastor it's a boasting apostle.

However, what Paul boasts in makes all the difference. We may see one of his boasts in 2 Cor. 1:12--"For our boast is this: the testimony of our conscience that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you." Then the apostle moves on to say, "I hope you will fully acknowledge--just as you did partially acknowledge us, that on the day of our Lord Jesus you will boast of us as we will boast of you" (vv. 13b-14).

In this passage, two boasts are appropriate for the pastor.

First, conducting ourselves in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity by the Grace of God toward our people is a worthy "boast." That's the gist of verse 12. Paul could say that his conscience was clean when it came to his behavior both in the world and toward the Christians at Corinth.

I read and re-read this passage, and I ask myself, "Could I write to the congregation the Lord has put in my charge and say with a clean/agreeing conscience that my life in the world and especially my treatment of the congregation is marked by simplicity and godly sincerity?"

Can I with confidence say I deal with people with singleness of mind (simplicity)? Or, have I been duplicitous in some way? Does my conscience produce evidence of sincerity that comes from God? And is all of this amplified toward the congregation ("supremely so toward you")?

Certainly not apart from God's grace. For the apostle is aware that the semblance of these things can be manufactured by "earthly wisdom." Am I trying to "fake it 'til I make it," but still faking it. Is there anything of the power of God, not mere form, in my interaction with the world and the saints? The life the apostle is here "boasting" in is the life of God in the soul. It's the genuine article produced by the grace of God, not a form denying the power thereof.

At least two things seem necessary from verse 12. First, it's necessary that I am listening to my conscience as it inspects my actions and my motives. Severing the conscience is an egregious attack against the self and the saints. Repudiating conscience destroys the ground of confident "boasting;" perhaps this is why the unexamined life is not worth living. The unexamined life provides no testimony of conscience and therefore no evidence of simplicity and godly sincerity, no account of integrity that springs forth in joyful assurance.

Our lives need examining. And yet my pride wars against examination. Better to assume I'm okay and doing all things well. This is a challenging passage for me. I'm aware of the interactions where I'm tempted to take the low road of compromise, to fear man more than God, to seek comfort in this life rather than holiness. And conversely, I'm aware of how even my more zealous moments are sometimes salted with self-righteousness, arrogance, unforgiveness, and the hellacious "pleasure" I derive from being right. And I'm aware of the pride that even now says, "If you play the grace card, you're actually participating in cheap grace." Which brings me to the second thing that seems necessary.

Second, it's imperative that my conscience be shaped by the word of God. It's entirely possible to inspect our lives with a poorly informed or misinformed conscience. For some, the conscience is too sensitive. For others, it's filled with "earthly wisdom" but not the knowledge of God's grace in Christ. Still others have a conscience ordered by all kinds of standards and expectations that have nothing to do with what Christ requires of them. So, shaping the conscience by the word of God is as important as listening to the conscience in self-examination. It's how we know which grace is costly and which cheap, what's zeal according to knowledge and what is not, worthy boasting in Christ and worldly boasting in self.

A second boast: "on the day of our Lord Jesus you will boast of us as we will boast of you." There is to be on that Great Day a mutual boasting before the Lord between pastor and people. In this life and the next the pastor and the saint can expect to fellowship together. In this life, they were his commendation, epistles written on the heart by the Spirit of God (2 Cor. 3:1-3). And in the next life, raised together with Jesus, the apostle expected to be presented together with the saints at Corinth (4:14). This is ministry today in light of eternity.

And this is Corinth Paul is writing to! Despite all their terrible failures, elsewhere he could say that they were the seal of his apostleship!

Surely it must be in the pastor's heart, no matter the condition of his people, to live well before the world and his people and to boast together in heaven with his people. Over the years I've kept coming to this passage. As a pastor, I want to live this kind of life and I want to rejoice together with my people in mutual testimony of faithfulness and godliness on the Day of our Lord. I love Paul's heart and pray for one like it by God's grace.

I'm tired this morning. I've been tired all week. And things appear to be getting busier. I think that's par for the course for pastors--and it's a peculiar joy to be able to give yourself to labor with eternal reward! But I'm still tired.

So, here's my question for fellow pastors... what do you do to rest? How do you keep things in balance?

Here's my question for non-pastors... what do you do to rest? How do you encourage your pastors to rest and maintain a good pace/balance?

"Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers" (I Tim. 4:16).

This is the text the Lord used to stir me at T4G. C.J.'s sermon was a wonderful exhortation to watch our lives as pastor and deserves repeated listening. In fact, you should probably stop reading this post and go ahead to the link and listen (or here to read).

C.J. makes the point that, especially among Reformed types, we're better at watching our doctrine than our lives. I think that's probably correct. But a good pastor wears bi-focals--he sees both his life and his doctrine.

And the two are connected. Right living will not impress Jesus if it's accompany by wrong doctrine, especially on the crucial matters. Right doctrine should lead to right living. It doesn't always do so, but that is evidence that we need our eyes on both. If I could make a sweeping generalization (very sweeping), this might be one shorthand way of distinguishing the primary concerns of historically African-American and White views of Christianity. My white brothers have been rightly concerned with right teaching while at times wholely inadequate in their concern for right living. My kinsmen according to the flesh have been rightly concerned with right living, especially with regard to social ethics and justice, while inadequate in their concern for right doctrine. We need both. And this is partly why I think these two streams of Christian tradition and thought need to be in more intimate conversation. But I digress....

A good pastor watches life and doctrine. He sees the connection and gets it. Some thoughts... nothing new. Just basic reminders.

1. A good pastor surrounds himself with A-quality men who help him in watching his life. Accountability is essential. And not just passive, reactionary "accountability," but searching, probing, initiative-taking accountability. We need people to ask us that tough question that we're avoiding in conversation, to pursue us rather than merely listen to us. We need others with an agenda for our holiness that is at times more zealous than our own agenda for holiness. This accountability should be one place where the following are also carried out.

2. A good pastor maintains a healthy interest, participation in, and love for his family. Not everyone will agree with my application of that principle. It seems to me that the priority in life is God first, family second, and ministry third. I can't make idols of either family or ministry such that they rival my affection for God. And if my affection for the Savior and my obedience to Him are strong, I should display high affection for my family. And I take 1 Timothy 3:4-5 to be prerequisites for ministry, and therefore to establish family as a priority over ministry. So, a good pastor will watch his life by watching the ordering of his priorities when it comes to his family. He will develop the ability and habit of saying "no" to that worthy ministry aim in order to say "yes" to that worthy set of relationships called family.

3. A good pastor keeps close watch on his thought life. He fights against anger, jealousy, censoriousness, lust, and the like. And he works to think about those things that are lovely, true, of good report, etc. Too often we listen to ourselves rather than speak to ourselves. And if we're not careful, what we listen to will be worldly, fleshly, poorly thought out, foolish ideas that lead to wrong conclusions and worldly, fleshly actions. A good pastor watches his life by fighting at the level of thoughts and desires, planting godly seeds and plucking out thorns and weeds before they choke his life.

4. A good pastor protects himself, his family, and his church from sexual immorality and the appearance of evil. A good pastor knows not to make any provision for his flesh or to leave his life open in such a way that invites unwanted attention, advances, or confusion. He doesn't meet or travel alone with women. He is not a shoulder to cry on for vulnerable women. His office is open or within view, avoiding the cloak of secrecy. At least his administrative asistant, and probably his admin. asst. and his wife, are aware of when he is meeting with women and what is generally the nature of the meeting. Speaking of his wife, he actively and joyfully gives himself to his wife in intimacy. He gouges out his eyes, cuts off his arms, and whatever else is necessary to protect himself, his family and his church from immoral acts. And again, he humbly and eagerly involves others in this protection and accountability.

5. A good pastor watches his life for rest and recreation. There should be adequate rest in the calendar and appropriate recreation. And a good pastor invites feedback on both, especially where there are questions about the appropriateness of some recreational pursuit. Eventually, pastors will lose the battle and the war if they don't rest. If Jesus doesn't return soon, and I pray that He would, a life of pastoral ministry will be a long haul and we'd better take care of our physical selves.

Next time, Lord willing, watching our doctrine.