A good friend recently gave me a copy of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl R. Trueman. In the introduction, Trueman put words to something that I have thought for a while when he wrote:

“As for the notion of some lost golden age, it is truly very hard for any competent historian to be nostalgic. What past times were better than the present? An ere before antibiotics when childbirth or even minor cuts might lead to septicemia and death? The great days of the nineteenth century when the church was culturally powerful and marriage was between one man and one woman for life but little children worked in factories and swept chimneys? Perhaps the Great Depression? The Second World War? The era of Vietnam? Every age has had its darkness and its dangers. The task of the Christian is not to whine about the moment in which he or she lives but to understand its problems and respond appropriately to them.”

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl R. Trueman

The words of Mordecai to Esther seem appropriate here when he said, “Who knows, perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this” (Es 4:14).

Rather than be nostalgic for something that never was, we can participate with God in responding correctly to the time in which we find ourselves.

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Scripture is very clear on the tendency of each of us to go wrong if left unchecked. We need to be constantly aware of our propensity for self-deception. This is especially true of church leaders.

This morning, I read this in Deuteronomy where Moses lays out guidelines for anyone who was to be king in Israel.

“When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold. “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.”

Deuteronomy 17:14–20, ESV (emphasis added)

Basically, the king was not to abuse his power and lose sight of the fact that he is a man just like every other man in the country. When we look at the actual history of Israel, we should note that the abuses that Moses warned them about were what actually took place.

This should be instructive to us as we look at how the church should be structured. We have too many examples of how celebrity pastors have gone astray by assuming power that was never theirs to assume. My guess is that every reader of this post could name at least one pastor who has made headlines for scandalous behavior.

Each of us, and especially those of us who are called to leadership in the church, needs to honestly face our ability to deceive ourselves and allow ourselves to be held accountable to the standard of Scripture.

In the denomination with which I am currently associated, the church constitution recognizes this need for accountability by stipulating that elders have equal authority to pastors. In other words when the pastor and the elders vote on a decision, the pastor has one vote, just like each of the elders.

I think that this is healthy because when followed, it protects the church from manipulation by a pastor who has an unhealthy agenda for the church. This should prevent the pastor from pushing the church in an unhealthy direction if the elders are willing to stand for what they know to be true.

Much heartache could have been avoided if the kings of Israel had followed Moses’ command.

Much heartache could be avoided today if church leaders recognize their own ability to deceive themselves and willingly submit to their fellow elders.

But unfortunately, in many cases, we set up our pastors for failure by expecting too much of them. We expect them to “cast a vision” for the church which will promote growth and popularity in the community. We expect them to be the draw for new people to attend the church. We expect them to dazzle us every Sunday with their polished presentation full of pop-culture references. We set up our celebrity pastors to begin believing their own press clippings to the point where they feel they are superior to the people that are called to hold them accountable.

In short, we too often set up the very structure that allows for things to go wrong.

It is my hope that we can begin to learn from our mistakes and rather than make a flawed human the focus of our Sunday, we could get back to focusing on Christ and what he has done to set all of us right, including the pastor.

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Recently I read this:

“The right to believe anything does not mean that anything anyone believes is right. The former is freedom of conscience and must always be respected unconditionally; the latter idea is nonsense and must often be opposed . . .”

Os Guinness – Unspeakable – Facing Up to the Challenge of Evil

I’d like to make a a two points in response.

First, we Christians should acknowledge that the church has often gotten it wrong concerning the proper application of tolerance. At times we have deserved the criticism that we are intolerant because of the way we have behaved toward those with whom we disagree.

We have proved to be quick to apply labels and put people into categories that diminish the respect that they are due as image-bearers of the God we claim to worship. We have lumped people into a faceless enemy rather than seeing them as ones whom God loves and wants to be in relationship with.

But, on the other hand, we do need to oppose ideas when they are untrue. The law of non-contradiction requires us to acknowledge that two mutually exclusive things cannot both be true.

So while we should always be loving toward those who disagree with what we believe, we also need to be clear about the distinction between what is true and what is false. We should also do our best to be able to explain why we make the distinction.

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Well, that’s not exactly how Jesus said it. His actual words were:

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33, ESV

But the problem is that those of us that are in the church have been pulled into the church out of the world and we carry some of the mess with us.

Perhaps it would be instructive to examine the word that is translated world. The Greek word is transliterated as Cosmos, which one lexicon defines as “the sum total of everything here and now, the (orderly) universe.” Another lexicon tells us, “When what is constructed consists of people, we find the sense of “human order,” e.g., of rowers, of an army, or of a city or state.”

So, we will have tribulation in the physical universe around us and the human forms of order or government in which we move and operate.

But the problem is that we (or perhaps it is only me) have the expectation that this same type of tribulation will not be experienced in the church. Intellectually, I know this is an unrealistic expectation, but yet, I am frustrated every time I actually experience tribulation in the church.

There is an old saying that if you find a perfect church, you should refuse to join it because you will spoil the perfection. That saying is an indication that we each bring baggage into the church and must acknowledge that God has much more work to do in each of us.

Two ideas come to mind in response to this.

First, I cannot let my frustration with the ways the church falls short keep me from seeing how God uses His Church to bring people into relationship with himself. To focus on the failures without seeing the good things gives a distorted and harmful view. And, focusing only on the failures is a means the Enemy uses to keep us scattered and divided.

Secondly, Jesus promises to overcome the failures. The fact that flawed humans (including me) make up the church and participate in leadership of the church does not prevent Jesus from accomplishing his purpose for the church.

I echo the words of Paul:

“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.”

Philippians 1:6, ESV

If you are encouraged by this post or would like to make a comment, please use the comment form below to offer your feedback. I enjoy hearing from you.