God, Family, Church

In this month's the Briefing, Simon Flinders has written a little article called 'The pastor and the evangelical priority list'. His basic argument is that the sayings like "a pastor's first congregation should be his family" are, in his opinion, incorrect. He is humble and gentle, and it is ably written. But I think his logic is flawed, and his argument ultimately wrong.

Firstly, a particularly questionable quote:

Is it really practical for a pastor of a congregation of God's people to place consistently the needs of his family above the needs of his church? [He answers no].  

Notice any problems with this Q&A? If you can't provide the needs of your family because of other commitments, then there are some serious problems here. But I don't think he means needs. He can't. I mean, he's not going to withhold food from his family for the sake of his church. I think he means desires, or even ideals, but not needs - please God that he doesn't mean needs. I feel for his family if he does.

Now he makes the good(-sounding) point, that the Bible doesn't provide straight-forward, easy answers to questions like this. That appeals to people, we like ambiguity, and we like to think things are more complex rather than less. But I don't see any genuine, satisfying justification for this in his argument, but rather he says he himself finds it tricky to navigate this issue.

Further, he argues that the Bible emphasises both as priorities (church and family), but never explicitly emphasises the needs of one over the needs of the other. I'll return to this in a second, but first a little aside.

He has a comparatively lengthy section on particular scenarios, including this one: The pastor comes home, the baby needs feeding, the kids need bathing, and then the phone rings. Someone in the parish is very ill and in hospital. What does the pastor do?

Now this is tricky, but it's irrelevant. Flinders argues that if he stays home he is prioritising his family, and if he goes he is prioritising his parish. Well, not really. Not wholistically.

Firstly there are other issues. Leaving your wife at home to do the bathing and feeding can be a godliness issue for her. As a couple you have decided it's ok to go on this occasion because that is the role you guys have chosen.

Secondly, this isn't about needs, it's about desires, and ideals. Perhaps your wife (and you) would desire to be at home, but this is maybe not the wisest choice. Perhaps it is ideal that you'd be at home rather than go out that night, and perhaps not. Your family life is tied to your godliness and your servant-heartedness, and your church life is too. So your family life and your church commitments are linked. Doing one option over another does not reveal your priorities in such a straight-forward way. This is a major problem with the article.

Ok, back to the Bible:

The relationship between husband and wife is a covenantal one. You made a solemn oath on your wedding day to treat your wife in particular as Christ has treated you, in a special, one-to-one way that demands your commitment to her physical and spiritual needs, and particularly you promise to present her pure and blameless on the last day, in so much as it is up to you.

A pastor has made no such covenant with their 'flock'. They are exhorted to protect them from ferocious wolves, and to treat them as family in a way, but the covenant (if there is one at all) in this case is nowhere near so binding as that. Similarly with the church. Flinders argues that the Bible never emphasises your blood-family over your church family. Yes it does! Your blood family is talked about often. Your church family is too, but not in the same way. Treat one another with purity, be concerned with one another's godliness, but with your family the rules are much more strict, and the relationships are expected to be much more intimate, of course.

Finally, I would think one can argue from the trinity of the necessarily stronger covenant between God and Jesus than God and us, and it has to do with different uses of the word family. But that would take a lot of words and people would disagree with me, so maybe not for today.

Flinders makes some excellent points, but I think his arguments are fatally flawed. I agree that it must be hard for a pastor to juggle his roles. I agree that it must be hard for missionaries to send their kids to boarding school (and would argue that if they are 'conflicted' as he says, then perhaps they shouldn't - but this is another matter again). But I cannot agree that the relationship between a pastor and his church is biblically on the same level as a man and his wife, and kids. The Bible never gives you such an out with your family.

As a final thought, consider this: If your wife became terminally ill and required full time care, would there be any question as to you leaving your job to care for her? A pastor is no different. Even if that church would fall apart, there would be no question.

Woops - and one more final thought! - The covenant you make with your wife is a binding one. A pastor may only be a pastor if, within the appropriate fulfillment of his promises to his wife, he has the time and energy to fulfil more roles to his congregation. It is the same for any new role. I cannot do ministry at my church at the expense of my relationship with my wife, because on my wedding day I made promises to my wife, and I must keep them. Just because I'm a physicist I don't think the rules are different. A pastor cannot neglect his wife for the benefit of his church, and so there's only one more option - if need be, he must neglect his ministry for the benefit of his wife.

I will write a letter to the Briefing. I'll try to be kind and thoughtful, which is not my strong-point when writing.

Does anyone have any comments that might help me think about this - or themselves?
Cheerios

How to Have the Attitude of Christ - Fear God

One of the longest chunks of scripture I know by heart (although I assume it's not word-for-word in any particular translation) is this embarrassingly short bit from somewhere in Philippians 2:

Therefore brothers, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but also in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works through you to will and to act according to his [good?] purposes.

I know it not because it was a memory verse from my childhood, but because it's one of those key passages you look up when you're thinking about what it means to fear God, and so over time it's kind of stuck.

Anyone who is churched in even a vaguely similar context as me will know a much longer song version of the preceding chunk, which also happens to be the "Since..." bit that goes with the therefore above (ie. Since this, Therefore that).

The chunk goes something like this: You should have the same attitude as Christ, who although he has some claim to God-ness, became a servant (to God - not people) by becoming a man, and was obedient even to the point of death. And because of this God exalted him and made his name great.

Therefore brothers...

I've heard a couple of sermons on this passage, and never has it been treated adequately. The problem, I think, is that we baulk at the phrase fear and trembling and end up make excuses for the passage. I am convinced there's only one reasonable reading which is dictated by mere logic. Here it is in short:

Because the Philippians are obedient types, the working out of their salvation is a fearful thing. God has purposes that he is working out in the world, and he is using his faithful elect to achieve them. In the case of Christ this meant torture and death. In the case of Christians, it means filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions: could be torture and death, could be something else. All we know is that if you are faithful you should expect suffering. We know that the exalting bit will happen, and sometimes we'll ask "How long, Oh Lord" until your vengeance on the wicked is exacted? But for now the expectation is that, like Christ, we will be fearful and trembling, at what God has in store for us before that happens.

I don't care how many times that word fear is used in the New Testament (four I believe) and how it is used in any other context. It's irrelevant. And I don't care what our existing theology of fear is. It's irrelevant as well is it not? The context and logic of the passage takes precedence, and the passage needs to change the way we think, not be manipulated to confirm our pre-existing notions. No?

I'm terrified that my reading of this passage is accurate, because I'm not terrified enough of God's plans, which makes me wonder whether I'm seeing God right, and whether he's treating me as an obedient son, or merely a cry-baby who still needs milk and cookies, not meat.

I can't emphasise enough how unpopular this reading seems to be, and how necessary it is from basic comprehension of the entire chunk.

Preaching II (and a clarification)

I was looking through my posts so far, and noticed one very unclear little sentence.

I said:
When I still lived in Australia I had a bit of a beef with the preaching

This implies one. But preachers are many. I wasn't having a go at preaching at my home church per se, but with the state of preaching everywhere that I had access to: Uni, my home church, churches in my town, churches I have visited, and sermons I download.

I'd say Tim Keller is my favourite preacher pastor who I don't know personally (Don Carson is my favourite speaker and writer but he's no longer a pastor). I don't agree with all his theology, but he has a lot to teach me. Nevertheless, I find his weekly sermons get pretty old pretty fast.

So what's going on? I am still happy to admit that my sinfulness is a problem here. But maybe it's not just sinfulness. Maybe there's a problem with my expectations... What is it that I should expect from a sermon? If the preacher gets something out of the passage that I couldn't get for myself then there's something worrying about my ability to read or his ability to read (know what I mean). Isn't there?

So I know that what I would love is to have my eyes opened (about something) every time I hear a sermon. But that's unrealistic, and frankly a bit unfair on the poor old preachers. So then what is the point of the weekly sermon? Here's a rough list off the top of my head:

1. It's good to spend an extended time reflecting on one chunk of the Bible. It aids rumination
2. A preacher can spend the week figuring out the wider biblical context of the passage, which is something that takes time and it's nice having someone do it for me at times and teach me to do it through his example.
3. A preacher can draw the threads through our Christology - another thing that can be hard and learnt from example.
4. We easily forget and need constant reminding (a very Islamic concept - but I suppose Islam got it from the Israelites too?)

There must be more, and significant ones I've missed. But when I think about it all these things are done in a good sermon by Tim Keller or back home. But these things can be a bit mundane. The breadth of Christian theology is in some ways vast and in some ways quite narrow. Drawing everything through our Christology is so extremely important that if it's not done it's not a good sermon, but then again, doing that same thing every single time can get a bit old. The wider biblical context is also not really that wide. The Bible is 1000 pages. There are only about 7 major epochs (or whatever you call them). Genesis 1-3 seems to explain most of the whole world and the Biblical trajectory of most things pretty well.

So I think the problems are: I'm sinful and tend to gripe, my expectations are unrealistic, biblical Christianity can be quite narrow which is both a wonderful thing and (see point 1: I'm sinful) at times a bit dull.

Preaching in Wollongong and the World

When I still lived in Australia I had a bit of a beef with the preaching.

You see, I'm from a really conservative part of the world: Sydney Anglicans (though I actually attended a Baptist church for the last 7 years or so, but it was a Sydney Anglican Baptist Church). And I was starting to get pretty tired of the preaching (and I'm happy - especially now - to admit it is almost definitely more of a reflection of my own sinfulness than the quality of the preaching). Nevertheless, I was tired of the anecdotes, illustrations, and depth. I was, and still am, sick of stories in sermons. On the odd occasion I will admit that a story can help you understand a difficult concept. But the problem is, that sermons almost never deal with difficult concepts - no depth. So stories become cute-sy asides rather than genuinely useful tools. On top of that there's the problem that as soon as a story is being told, my ears prick up and I take interest! Again, this may be a reflection on me, but I really feel like a story is told with a lot more enthusiasm, in general, than biblical exposition and exegesis.

Enter migration:

We recently moved to Germany. We have been attending what I think is just about the best church in our area, and the preaching (I'm really sorry if anyone involved in this particular church ever reads this) sucks. It's this vague pop-psychology crap that occasionally refers to a verse here or there with any notion of context either discarded or worse, misunderstood. It's like, if the topic is "family", then I could have just googled "family help dysfunction counselling", printed off the top 5 results, and spent the next 45 minutes reading that and the sermon would have been almost identical, except that it claims the name of Christ.

Now the really scary bit: This is the state of preaching throughout the world. As far as I understand this is exactly what most of the world expects from the pulpit, and what I get back home is really really rare. This idea of working through a passage, understanding its context in both the book that it's in and the Bible as a whole, understanding really well what it says and then figuring out how that touches on our lives, and of course, that route is taken via Jesus - well this is just not done in most of the world.

On our way home from a record 1.5 hours of a record amount of drivel (admittedly not the usual preacher, but the youth worker - like that's an excuse), and while lamenting the number of encouraging "hmmms" and nods we heard and saw throughout the service, my wife raised the very interesting question (which we only cannot understand because we're not smart enough or big enough or godly enough): What is God doing with his church?

No question it'll be impressive, but geez it's not obvious.