警告という思いやり

インドネシアのスマトラ島が、2010年、大津波に襲われ、400人以上が亡くなりました。しかし、津波警報システムが機能していれば、死亡者はゼロか最小限に抑えられたはずでした。津波検知のブイは外れて流されていたのです。

イエスは、仲間の中に霊性を害するもの、例えば、悔い改めない罪があるなら、キリストの弟子は戒める責任があると言われました。イエスは、傷つけられた人が、事を公にせず、謙虚な姿勢と祈り心で、加害者に「指摘」するプロセスを説かれました（マタ18:15）。もし、加害者が悔い改めれば、争いは解決され、関係は修復されます。一方、悔い改めないなら、「ほかに一人か二人」の人が解決を手伝います（16節）。それでも、悔い改めないなら、それは「教会」に持ち込まれます（17節）。それでもなお、加害者が悔い改めない場合、その人は集会の交わりから排除されます。しかし、人々は当然、その人のために祈り、キリストの愛を示します。

罪を悔い改めないのは危険だと、思いやり深く警告する知恵と勇気が備えられるように。そして、天の父と信仰の家族との関係を回復する喜びを示せるように。キリスト者として祈りましょう。イエスは「わたしもその中にいる」（20節）と言われます。

from デイリーブレッド

Confrontational Christlikeness

The kind of man you hate reveals what kind of man you are. “But I hate him,” Ahab declared of Micaiah, God’s prophet.

Jehoshaphat, the righteous king of Judah, sat with Ahab, the wicked king of Israel, to deliberate one question: Should they go to war together against Syria? Peace had lasted three years with the pagan nation, but Ahab desired the strategic city of Ramoth-gilead for Israel. He questioned aloud to Jehoshaphat, “Do you know that Ramoth-gilead belongs to us, and we keep quiet and do not take it out of the hand of the king of Syria?” (1 Kings 22:3).

Jehoshaphat consents to fight with Ahab, but desires to hear first from the God of Israel. Ahab calls his four hundred prophets, who, with one voice, give their hearty Amen! “Go up,” they say, “for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king” (1 Kings 22:6).

The kind of men from whom you solicit counsel tells us what kind of man you are.

These men were no messengers of Yahweh, and King Jehoshaphat knew so. Diplomatically, he asks, “Is there not here another prophet of the Lord of whom we may inquire?” (1 Kings 22:7). To Jehoshaphat, four hundred counselors of any other god could not substitute for one man of Yahweh. There is one, Ahab reluctantly responds, Micaiah. “But I hate him,” Ahab gasps before discretion tutors the statement.

Why did Ahab hate the true prophet? “I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil” (1 Kings 22:8).

Ahab loved the four hundred yes-men around him. He loved prophets feasting with him, prophesying pleasantries. He loved to hear his own positive thoughts returned to himself unaltered. He loved only affirming words, positive words — not the untamed and unpredictable words of God’s true prophet. The kind of man Ahab hated revealed the kind of man he was.

What Kind of Man Are You?

Now, to turn and see the story from Micaiah’s perspective (the point of this article): The kind of person who despises you also may tell you what kind of man you are. Ahab hated Micaiah because Ahab hated Micaiah’s God.

Wasn’t this because Ahab couldn’t comfortably untether the servant from his Master? Micaiah’s allegiance to the living God was not superficial — wasn’t a religious hobby to be picked up and put down. Ahab knew Micaiah didn’t serve the Lord just during office hours. His devotion went to the heart. Ahab would kill the prophet before he killed the prophet’s faith. Can the like be said of us?

This son of Imla was God’s man through and through. Whether talking to the false prophets or to the king himself, he was his Master’s man. Whether struck in the face and questioned by Zedekiah or thrown into jail by Ahab, he was his Master’s man. Whether Ahab invited him to feast at Jezebel’s table, or invited him for a wine-tasting from Naboth’s vineyard, or asked him about going to war with Syria — Ahab knew what he could expect from this lone prophet of the Lord: to deal with the Lord’s man. Ahab could expect God’s truth spoken through God’s messenger. And he hated him for it.

Confrontational Christlikeness?

So, we might then ask, do the right people dislike us?

What? you might think. If we are mature believers — truly humble and gentle and patient and loving and compassionate — will we really ever be disliked? Hatred and disgust may be reserved for those argumentative and obnoxious professors — but not us. Clanging cymbals, flies buzzing about the ear, hornets stinging any who disagree — these are rightly disliked. But we give the gentle answer. We listen and respect others.

Many Western Christians, it appears to me, are tempted with and indulgent in an agreeableness unknown to Micaiah. We stand ready to give the compassionate word, the soft encouragement, the positive uplift — but do not go on to ever risk anything that might displease. We are not disliked more because we do not say many things that are dislikable to the spirit of the age. Unbelievers at work or online or in our families feel free to parade their profanities and perversities before our ears and eyes without restraint, but it is ours, apparently, to keep quiet and let them perish out of politeness.

Nobody mistakes us for Jude, or Elijah, or Paul, or John the Baptist, or the Sons of Thunder. Or Jesus, for that matter. Zeal for our God and his house does not consume us. We avoid having to report, “the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me” (Psalm 69:9). Jesus, in such whip-making, temple-clearing aggression, is not our choice brand of Christlikeness. Indeed, confrontational Christlikeness seems to them no Christlikeness at all — despite the New Testament’s consistent testimony to it.

Hated for the Master

Now, we need our gentle and beloved Johns. But we need to also acknowledge that our gentle and beloved John was also persecuted and exiled for being uncompromising with his Master’s truth. He wrote his last letter as a brother and partner in the tribulation, banished to “the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (Revelation 1:9). Polish as we may, we cannot smooth over the offense of the cross.

So what am I saying? If no one dislikes you on account of Christ, it’s probably not because you have become greater, more endearing, more friendly to the lost than Jesus, the apostles, or the lineage of persecuted Christians and martyrs throughout church history. If no one dislikes you on account of Christ, it is likely because you have been too quiet about Jesus, too lukewarm for him, or too much like the world for them to notice the difference.

Was this not part of Jesus’s message to the disciples in the upper room?

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: “A servant is not greater than his master.” If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. (John 15:19–21)

If we bear authentic witness to Jesus for long enough, the world will hate us. We don’t pursue their hatred, but we do prepare for it. Do you have a category for this? Do you expect pats on the head from those who would again nail your Master to a cross if they could? Should they treat us better than him? I have thought so — at least hoped so. My wrestlings in the quiet moment have been,

Must I be carried to the skies
On flowery beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize
And sailed through bloody seas?

Are there no foes for me to face?
Must I not stem the flood?
Is this vile world a friend to grace,
To help me on to God? (“Am I a Soldier of the Cross”)

“Woe to you,” Jesus taught, “when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets” (Luke 6:26). It is an ill omen for Ahab and his four hundred men to applaud. “What did I do wrong,” Socrates once asked, “that yonder villain praised me just now?” Spurgeon comments, “And so may the Christian say, ‘What, have I done wrong, that So-and-so spoke well of me, for if I had done right he would not; he has not the sense to praise goodness, he could only have applauded that which suited his own taste’” (“Citizenship in Heaven”).

The world’s hatred doesn’t always confirm our faithfulness to Christ. It may be owing to our own sin. But in this unruly world, we must consider, as Micaiah, that frowns, and even a jail cell, can be a better sign of fidelity than smiles and congratulations.

Love in a Hypersensitive Age

After a soft rebuke from Jehoshaphat, Ahab sends for the prophet of his disgust. When found, Ahab’s delegate preps Micaiah for the meeting: “Behold, the words of the prophets with one accord are favorable to the king. Let your word be like the word of one of them, and speak favorably” (1 Kings 22:13). Speak favorably, Micaiah. Mind your tongue. Don’t worry — everyone else is doing it. Micaiah responds,

As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak. (1 Kings 22:14)

As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak. Is that my motto? Is it yours? Even when it will cost us?

A word to fellow pastors: We love to comfort our people. We love to encourage them. We love to bring them glad tidings of great news of God’s grace. This we not only must do — we get to do. We labor with them for their joy (2 Corinthians 1:24). And yet, in an age hypersensitive to hard words, we still must warn, must correct, must rebuke sheep and wolves out of love — come what may.

Just as we can find too much Ahab in the culture (and even in the church), we also might find too little Micaiah in us. But as Christ lives, what our God says, that must we speak.

Sacred Fools

David Wells, in his classic No Place for Truth, gives us the picture of the pastor in the modern world as “the Sacred Fool.” Refusing to “lead by holding aloft moist fingers to sense the changes in the wind,” this man stands beholden to his Master. Wells explains,

So long as they cloaked their advice in humor, jesters were able to say things to kings and princes that might have been fatal for anyone else to say. Happy was the king who had a good fool. And happy are those churches whose ministers are likewise emancipated from the bonds of class interest and social expectation, freed to expose the follies of modernity in light of God’s truth. (250)

What kind of men are we? Are we sacred fools for Jesus who have been liberated from class interest and social expectation? Are we the King’s men? Curses can be compliments — and more than compliments, blessings. “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!” (Luke 6:22).

The kind of men who hate us will reveal what kind of men we are.

from Desiring God http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16164504/confrontational-christlikeness
via DG

心の在りどころ

ウィスコンシン州ミドルトンに行くことがあったら、国立マスタード博物館を訪れてはいかがでしょう。マスタードなどどれも同じだと思う人には驚きです。世界中の6090種類ものマスタードが展示されています。テキサス州マクリーンには有刺鉄線博物館があります。これほどの情熱を金網に燃やす人がいることに驚くかもしれません。

何を大切にしているかは示唆的です。ある作家はバナナ博物館で午後のひと時を過ごすのもなかなかいいものだと言っています。滑稽ですが、自分にも自慢の博物館があると気付くなら、笑いごとではすみません。自慢の博物館とは、すなわち、自分で作った偶像を大切に祭っている場所です。

神は「わたし以外に、ほかの神があってはならない」（出20:3）「それらを拝んではならない。それらに仕えてはならない」（5節）と命じられましたが、私たちは、富や欲望、成功、または心の隙間を埋める何らかの宝物を作り、密かにそれを拝んでいます。私たちは自分の罪の博物館について、神に説明責任を負います。しかし、このみことばの要点は、ご自分を愛する者には「恵みを千代にまで施す」（6節）の方です。神は、私たちの「博物館」がいかに馬鹿げたものかを知っておられます。私たちの真の充足は、神を愛することしかないと、ご存じなのです。

from デイリーブレッド

Pastoring with Your Life: Exemplary Conduct in Little Moments

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in . . . conduct. (1 Timothy 4:12)

My brother pastor, this tragic world has no idea how much you’re worth. But in the eyes of the risen Christ, you so matter. You carry weight with him, and you can carry weight with the people in your church. And this gravitas has nothing to do with your age.

If the ministry makes you feel inadequate, welcome to the ministry! Even the prophet Jeremiah felt that way. But the Lord told Jeremiah to stop his defeatist thoughts: “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak” (Jeremiah 1:7). And then God reached out and put his own words in Jeremiah’s mouth (Jeremiah 1:9). Why? Because what matters more than your mouth is whose words are in your mouth.

And, remember, your calling is to pastor, not only to preach. These two primary tasks are inseparable but distinguishable. Preaching declares gospel doctrine, and pastoring nurtures gospel culture. When the pastor’s message is good news, and his manner is gentle warmth, “church” can start feeling like an experience of Jesus himself. And it’s exemplary pastoral conduct, surrounding both preaching and pastoring, that leads people into those green pastures and beside those still waters.

You don’t have to be brilliant, but you must be exemplary. First Timothy 4:12 says so. And how could it be otherwise? We can think of gifted ministers whose shameful conduct has discredited them and grieved us all. The whole world, along with the entire Christian church, has every right to expect us to be surprisingly exemplary in this age of corruption. Brother, let’s stand tall with Christlike integrity, as true-hearted men of God. If we corrupt ourselves, we, like King David, will give “great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme” (2 Samuel 12:14 NKJV). So much is at stake right here: “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in . . . conduct.”

Pastoring in ‘Little’ Moments

Conduct, in the original text, suggests your multifaceted lifestyle, your many moments on many fronts, your total way of life in all its variety. This word covers all your interactions with people, all aspects of your job performance, all occasions of family life and leisure. George Abbot-Smith’s Manual Greek Lexicon catches the sense with “a wheeling about” — that is, a turning from one moment to the next as each day unfolds.

The whole-life-ness of conduct reminds me of one way I’ve changed over the years. Back in college, all my friends were reading The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. So I took it up too. But I couldn’t stick with it. The story unfolded so slowly, with one subplot after another slowing the onward movement of the drama. I started thinking, “Get to the point!” In my impatience, I gave up. That was in the 1970s.

Then the summer before the first LOTR movie came out in 2001, I tried again. I wanted my own imagination to paint the pictures. And this time, I couldn’t put the books down. Why? Tolkien hadn’t changed. I had changed. I had come to realize, by my fifties, that my real life is just like Tolkien’s portrayal — one tiny subplot after another, but each one meaningful within the larger story. I now understand that all my tiny moments are building toward the final denouement promised by God. So, I get it. Many small moments are how our lives actually work. They are where our conduct is formed and displayed. They matter.

The Book of Common Prayer gets us praying that “among the swift and varied changes of this world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found.” Exactly. That’s the realism, and the hope, empowering exemplary pastoral conduct.

Your Life Can Persuade

Let’s admit it. In lots of moments, ministry can feel insignificant. But your little moments are not little. Each one fits meaningfully into your story, as told by the Lord Jesus. Every meeting, every conversation, every quiet minute of study — all of it constitutes your conduct, declares your character, and can inspire your congregation. So, think long-term, and be patient. If God isn’t rushing around in a hurry, why should you? Over time, your exemplary conduct, growing into a magnificent totality, is convincing. You will win the respect of good people.

Yes, sadly, some church people will never respect you. But most others will be reasonable and will admire your example. They will feel proud that you are their pastor. You will prove the wisdom of saintly old J.C. Ryle: “Your life is an argument that none can escape.”

Now let’s get practical. As in my last article on exemplary speech, let’s see how Titus 2:2 can help us: “Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled.” The “older men” are the grown-ups in the room. Your conduct can make you one of those heroes right now. Whatever your age, you can help set the tone for everyone else.

SOBER-MINDED

The exemplary pastor’s conduct is calm. He strides forward with gentle confidence. It isn’t bravado. It is sober realism. You are, in fact, serving the One who has all authority in heaven and on earth. You have no right to be inflated with pride or crippled with fear. The Lord of the universe called you into the ministry. He has been preparing you all your life for the duties and challenges of this very day. You’re more ready than you feel. Dare to believe it. And go do the next right thing.

You can be a mature father-figure in your church. And good fathers know what to do, what to say, as the occasion requires. Then the other family members feel reassured, safe, grateful. What a wonderful calling your Lord has given you! You don’t have to deserve it, but you do have to receive it. Your exemplary conduct proves to your people that “Papa’s home.”

DIGNIFIED

The exemplary pastor’s conduct is noble. The longer I live, the more I desire this in my own life. That title “Reverend” before your name calls for this very quality of dignity, nobility, honor. I have no respect for pompous grandiosity in a minister. But gravitas — I revere it, and I expect it.

Is there laughter in the ministry? Oh, yes! How lovely a sound is the hearty laughter of the saints! But infantile silliness, common in our declining culture, deserves no place among the blood-bought people of God. We worship here below in harmony with “angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven,” as the Book of Common Prayer reminds us. Please, brother, show your church, by your exemplary conduct, what that dignity can look like — even this Sunday.

SELF-CONTROLLED

The exemplary pastor’s conduct is steady. Maybe at times you notice some unruly emotions inside you, as I do inside me. That bad neighborhood between our two ears can be a crazy place to dwell in. Our dark thoughts and feelings can dominate us, even defeat us. But godly men fight back. They dare to live in Spirit-given self-control.

Why not go to a trusted friend at church to talk and pray through together what most unsettles you? No one grows in isolation, not even pastors. But all of us can walk in newness of life by going to a wise friend with this humble request: “Help me see myself.” Who wouldn’t benefit from that? Your vulnerability itself will be exemplary conduct. And you will grow in the steady self-mastery that adorns the gospel you preach.

Exemplary or Cool?

The great thing about being 73 and half-dead is that I’m not cool anymore. It’s freeing. I don’t have to project an idealized false Ray. I can get over myself and love others. And here is my plea to you, my brother pastor: Why not enter that freedom right now, at your younger age? You can be exemplary in your conduct, by God’s grace, at a level that surprises even you.

Rolling Stone magazine interviewed Billy Joel back in 1990. Here’s a snippet of what he said:

I need substance in my life. And the world needs substance. The world doesn’t need any more hip. Hip is dead. The world doesn’t need more cool, more clever. The world needs substantial things.

The world needs substantial pastors too. That’s what I believe. It’s what you believe. Okay then: set the believers an example in your conduct.

from Desiring God http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16162097/pastoring-with-your-life
via DG

Can Single Men Pastor?

In Paul’s elder qualifications, he seems to assume that pastors will be married. So how should churches assess the qualification of a single man who wants to pastor?

Listen Now

from Desiring God http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16162098/can-single-men-pastor
via DG