Considering A Journey to Wholeness

It has been quite some time since I’ve read a book in less than a week.

It has been a few years since I’ve read a volume in the Gospel According to the Old Testament series.

Both changed this past week. I was scheduled to preach on the healing of the leper at the end of Mark 1. It is hard to consider that text and event without also pondering the healing of Naaman. This led me to A Journey to Wholeness: The Gospel According to Naaman’s Slave Girl by Mark Belz.

You know you are onto something when a book stirs up a desire to preach a text. It has happened a few times. While reading Iain Duguid’s expositional commentary on Esther I decided to preach thru Esther. Reading this book makes me want to preach a series on this.

While a series on a chapter might seem like overkill, there are plenty of things to consider. Mark Belz helps us to work through these matters. He focuses on the people involved in this story, and brings us to the centrality of the gospel in this story which seems odd to us at first glance. He brings us into the New Testament to address Jesus’ reference to this event and how it set off a dumpster fire in Nazareth. He then moves into biblical reconciliation as he wraps up the book and his exploration of themes brought forward in Naaman’s healing.

In the preface, Belz reminds us that “our lives are stories, not outlines”. God communicates theology to us largely through story. There is propositional truth there, but it frequently doesn’t follow a neat outline. Belz follows the story line to get at the truth found there. He begins with Naaman, then the slave girl, back to Naaman for his response to the girl’s information, to the first encounter with Elisha, the healing and second encounter with Elisha to the emergence of Gehazi and the problems he creates.

This is in the backdrop of the conflict between Israel/Samaria and Syria. Naaman is a general in the Syrian army, and a highly successful one it would seem. He would likely hate Israel/Israelites and be hated by them.

His problem is leprosy which threatens first his health, then his career and ultimately his life. There is much in the balance for a man of such prestige. Oddly enough a solution to his problem emerges from the spoils of war- an Israelite slave girl. She is the only person in this story whose name we don’t know. As a slave girl she seems so unimportant, but her simple testimony that there is a prophet in Israel who can heal him is what makes this more than a sad tale of a cruel man with a horrendous disease.

The Israelite-Syrian hostility is always there, and part of what God is doing to resolve. There is more at stake here than the healing of a man, however important he may be to himself and his nation.

Gehazi, driven by this hostility, is offended that Elisha extracts no exorbitant fee, or any fee, from this enemy of Israel. Like Judas, he’s driven by greed and undermines the gospel.

While this is a very good book, it is not a perfect book. I’ll start with the trivial and move to the more serious.

And I do mean trivial.

“Gehazi now knew he was fried tomatoes.”

What? This odd local phrase may be understood in his neighborhood but I am clueless. I lived in Florida for about 20 years and traveled through many a southern state. But I have never heard this particular expression. Part of communicating to a wider audience would seem to be getting rid of peculiar, localized idioms. I’m not sure how this got past the editors, or how it has gotten past me for 5 decades.

At times he seems to assert too much. He attributes too much to an individual’s thought process. What Belz says about the Abrahamic covenant is absolutely true. Whether or not this slave girl is that good of a theologian is to have had it in mind when approaching her mistress is debatable. There are a few other instances like this: asserting an unknown motive, however true the theology is. The chapter The Look of Reconciliation has a number of instances where he seems to go beyond what the text says.

I’m reminded of how easy it is for us to do this as preachers. We should be clear in making the distinction between the theology behind the story and the actual motives or theology of the people in the story. We can (and should) draw out the connections to other texts. God has more in mind than the human subjects of the Story do. Let’s be care to not assume they also had these grand theological connections in mind.

Another issue is that of “color-blindness”. I’m not so big a fan of color-blindness. I don’t want to stereotype people on the basis of color, but color is important. It gives us a hint about hardships a person may have encountered. We’d be foolish to act as if a black person who has experienced racism is actually a white person who hasn’t. This doesn’t mean every black person in America has profound stories of racism, or that they are fragile. But it means we may want to talk with them about how an action might be perceived. This is true of any minority.

Color-blindness blinds us to the impact of cultural differences as well. Color-blindness means that I basically assume everyone is like me and will look at things like I do. Unless they are stupid (see how self-righteousness works). So, I’d disagree with him that color-blindness is a great goal. Mutual understanding and respect is a better one, in my opinion. That takes our differences in background seriously.

Overall, a very good book that helps us to see the gospel in this story about a powerful man brought low by leprosy. This gospel is not simply powerful enough to heal a disease, but also powerful enough to heal relationships and nations.

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Considering the Imperfect Pastor

A while ago one of the admissions guys from our denominational seminary was in town and stopped by. We talked for awhile. A short time later a book arrived in the mail. It was The Imperfect Pastor by Zack Eswine. As a result I read it while on study leave.

I am reminded of the story of Elisha hounding Elijah because he knew it was time for Elijah to “go home”. He asked for a double portion (the firstborn son’s inheritance). As I read this book I got the impression that he is the new Eugene Peterson. This is about the man in ministry and how he goes about ministry. It is not ivory tower theory, but born of the intersection of theology and life.

I am also reminded of the great men in Scripture who thought they would be great on their own terms, and then God humbled them and they became more useful. Zack is not the hero of this story, and neither are we. This is an honest book about the hard lessons he learned.

This is not a “perfect book”, and that is perfectly fine. There is plenty here to encourage, humble and re-direct. He breaks the book into 4 sections: Calling, Temptations, Reshaping the Inner Life and Reshaping the Work. There is an element of who the reader is that impacts how any book is perceived. For me the lag was in the 3rd section. In some ways though I suspect he could make a cottage industry of this with the Imperfect Husband, the Imperfect Father ….. precisely because this material does apply to all of these callings.

“My pastoral desires had become tainted, and I did not realize it. A lot of us don’t. We and our congregations suffer for it.”

The main part I took away from the first section on calling is the intersection of God’s calling and our past. Our history is important because we don’t just shake it off. It comes with us into our calling, and makes our fulfilling that calling more difficult. Our history shapes who we are (grace does too), often in ways we cannot or do not perceive. The more we ignore our history, the more it will impact how we do ministry.

The temptations pastors face, and are sometimes thrust upon them as demands, are important. In this section he has something of a mantra: “You and I were never meant to repent for not ___________. You and I are meant to repent because we tried to be.” His issue is our attempt to be like God, not in terms of His communicable attributes but in terms of His incommunicable attributes. We want to be everywhere (and at the right time), able to fix everything, knowing everything and that everything can happen NOW. Here he quotes Eugene Peterson:

“I think the besetting sin of pastors, maybe especially evangelical pastors, is impatience.”

These temptations are part of the context of fulfilling our calling. We cannot avoid these temptations, but must face them much like Luke Skywalker has to face the temptations of the dark side. Except this doesn’t happen in a cave, but in the course of ministry.

“When Jesus begins to rescue us from trying to fix it all, know it all, be everywhere for all as fast and as famously as possible, we find ourselves in a hard spot.”

The 3rd section sounds like it has been greatly influenced by The Contemplative Pastor. He encourages speaking less and listening more (James 1:19). There will be a time to speak, but first we must listen. This is made even more difficult in the social media/sound bite world we live in. He offers three thoughts for other pastors for us to ponder in our “detox”.

1. The boundaries of your calling reveal God’s pastoral care for you. He knows our limitations and capacities, precisely because He gave them to you. He doesn’t expect you to go beyond those limitations. Respect them.
2. In trying so hard not to miss out, you actually create the thing you fear. Too many pastors are so busy going to conferences that they miss out on their actual calling. I’m not called to go to conferences, but to shepherd people.
3. Smaller is always better than larger unless, and only if, God extrudes us. I’ve only been a small church pastor. I see some larger church pastors struggling to actually shepherd. They are teachers (and there are times I wish I was primarily a teaching/preaching “pastor”). God does put some people in these larger contexts, but we have to resist the selfish ambition that claws for them, always looking for the next, better & bigger position instead of shepherding the people where you are.

“When the three-fold omni-temptation to be like God takes hold of us with speed, we gradually turn to the Bible as a tool kit to make our programs work or our sermons applaudable rather than as the words of our Beloved meant to help anyone anywhere find the way home.”

The last two chapters, Local Knowledge and Leadership, are among the high points of the book. Ministry does not happen in a vacuum, but in a real place which is different from other real places. So he talks about how to grow in knowledge of your place (made more difficult with the internet which helps us know about every other place). Leadership takes a slower pace, more intentional and contemplative, including training. I’ve done some of this in training- the idea of shadowing and attending meetings to see how the guy fits in and approaches things. I can do more.

So, the bottom line is that I highly recommend this book to pastors and elders. The pastor cannot change the local culture and expectations alone. He needs the help of those in leadership with him. As they embrace the things Zack talks about, the healthier their leadership and churches will become.

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Considering Caring for Widows

James notes something quite important about the effects of faith:

²⁷ Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. James 1

James is merely applying the message of the Old Covenant to the church. These priorities are there. Protestants have typically focused on the last of these, sanctification. In the 19th century a number of orphanages were built by leading figures like Charles Spurgeon and George Mueller. In recent days we’ve seen the focus on adoption arise, in part because of this verse.

But what about widows? We haven’t focused on that very much which is to our detriment in my opinion. Though I’ve been a pastor since 1998 and a number of congregants have become widows in that time, I surely haven’t cared for them as well as I ought to have. The subject really isn’t talked about much.

Recently our men’s study went through 1 Timothy and we spent a night talking about this. At about the same time one of our members became a widow. There just don’t seem to be any books on caring for widows.

Thankfully Crossway has just released Caring for Widows by Brian Croft and Austin Walker. It is not a very long book, and it is filled with very short chapters. In this way it can quickly help pastors, deacons and ministry leaders know why they should care for widows and provide some practical ways of caring for the widows in your midst.

The first section is written by Austin Walker. Austin focuses on the precepts, principles and examples found in Scripture to communicate that widows should be cared for and how they were cared for. As a result, he focuses on God’s love and concern for widows since they were among the most vulnerable members of society. Jewish law made provision for them (tithing, gleaning, Levirate marriage) so that poverty would not destroy them or tempt them to use sinful means to survive. God demanded justice and compassion for the widows, and if they failed He would hear their cries and bring curses on Israel.

Austin also points us to God’s work to provide for particular widows. There is a chapter on Ruth and Naomi. He also reminds of of the widows that Elijah and Elisha ministered to in miraculous ways to demonstrate God’s loving compassion. Jesus also cared for widows, raising one’s dead son and making sure His own mother would be cared for prior to His death. We also see how the early church provided for widows in the book of Acts.

As noted above, the chapters are short. Walker doesn’t waste much time. There is no fluff there, but he does a fairly thorough job making his point. Any church officer or ministry leader can’t avoid his point: we need to care for the widows that God has placed in our care.

Brian Croft writes the second section of the book which focuses on some particular ways we can and should care for widows. These include the private ministry of the Word, equipping the congregation to come along side them, what it means to visit in various situations (home, hospital and nursing home),writing notes and cards, and celebrating holidays with them.

Their needs are not simply financial. He could have spent a little more time on this, at least in helping churches evaluate which widows need financial assistance or working them through the process of downsizing so they can care for themselves. Ideally, husbands provide for their spouses through savings and life insurance. Here in America, Social Security provides some benefits. But these may be insufficient should health problems arise. The family should care for them, and then the church.

The church needs to show them compassion even if they are not helping them financially. They have emotional, relational and practical needs that used to be met by their husbands which are no longer being met. Particularly if family is not nearby, the church becomes important in meeting these needs. It could be as simple as a deacon coming by to change A/C filters to fixing leaky faucets or other repairs. It is also a ministry of friendship by men acting like sons to her, or younger women acting like daughters.

In terms of visitation, I was a little surprised by how short his hospital visits were. I’ve often found people in the hospital to be quite bored and willing to visit unless they were in great pain or other distress. He is right in that the dynamics change when someone is in the hospital. But whenever we visit it is important to include the ministry of the Word and prayer.

There are also times when a widow’s loneliness is more profound: anniversaries, holidays and birthdays. These are times to send notes and cards reminding them that they are loved by God and you.

He “caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy” (Job 29:13). That should be the aim of the church in ministering the grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ to widows. It is not only the ministry the church should undertake, but it is an integral part of that biblical religion which James defined as “pure and undefiled … before God and the Father” (James 1:27).

Taking care of the widows among us does not make for a dynamic program. But it is an important part of church ministry. This little book helps equip us for this important ministry. This is a book pastors, deacons and leaders should read, and implement.

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Considering the Gospel in the Old Testament

One of the series I’ve discovered and enjoyed over the years is P&R’s Gospel in the Old Testament series.  WTS Books is currently running a sale on them of 50% off the 11 volume set.  They would make a great Christmas gift (sorry Desert Springs people, I have most of them).

I first learned about the series when the late Ray Dillard visited RTS Orlando for Spiritual Emphasis Week.  He preached on Elijah and Elisha and their connection with Jesus and the gospel.  This was turned into Faith in the Face of Apostasy.   Unfortunately Dr. Dillard would not live much longer.

I am currently re-reading Living in the Gap between Promise and Reality: The Gospel According to Abraham for my sermon series on the life of faith in the life of Abraham.  Iain Duguid, formerly of Westminster West and now at Grove City College and planting an ARP church, is the author.  He also wrote Living in the Grip of Relentless Grace: The Gospel According to Isaac and Jacob.  These are 2 of my favorites in the series, offering hope to guys like me for whom life is a series of struggles- some self-made.

There are also volumes on Jonah, David, Hosea, Daniel (by a professor at Erskine though not my favorite volume), Job and Israel’s Worship.  I guess I’m missing the volumes on Ruth and Zechariah (which I may not get).

They take the position that all of Scripture (not each and every verse) points us to the fulfillment of God’s plan of redemption- Jesus.  So the show how the text points us to and prepares us for the ministry of Jesus for us.  Great stuff.  This series was also helpful for me to learn how to see and make those connections for my people so I was actually preaching the gospel each week.  I find them valuable.

 

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Considering Faith in the Face of Apostasy

This morning I had to give my first-ever children’s sermon.  The text was 1 Kings 18 (the subject of their children’s church lesson).  To prepare I broke out my copy of Faith in the Face of Apostasy: The Gospel According to Elijah and Elisha by Raymond Dillard.

The cycle of stories in 1 & 2 Kings about these two prophets are among my favorites in the Old Testament.  Prior to his death, Raymond Dillard did some lectures at RTS Orlando that would later be a part of this book.  It was the first in the Gospel According to the Old Testament series.  The series takes a biblical theological, gospel-centered approach to the texts.  I really enjoy this series.

And it all started with this book.  It was the first one I read, prompting me to keep an eye out for new installments in this series.  I think I’ve been disappointed only once.

This series has been a series that has instructed me in what it looks like to take a redemptive-historical, gospel-centered approach to Scripture.  That simple means to keep each text in the context of the whole, connecting it to the story of redemption which culminates in Christ.

Understood this way, Elijah and Elisha are historical types of Christ.  Their ministry is a reflection of his earthly ministry.  In each chapter Dillard brings us from the days of Elijah to the present through the work of Christ.  Each chapter has questions at the end to help you process and apply that portion of Scripture.

It is my hope to eventually use these materials for a sermon series or small group.  I want my congregation to learn the redemptive-historical approach to the Scriptures and this is one great way to teach them.

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