Cold Turkish evangelism

Having failed dismally the test on the normal Christian life prescribed by Tony Payne, I suppose I fall into the category of those who have chosen “to live a comfortable life in a nice suburb with a nice career, a nice family and a bit of Chistianity on the side”. That presumably includes those of us who have bought houses because of affordable prices instead of using more sanctified criteria.

On the other hand, Scripture seems to regard the normal Christian life as living a godly life in whatever place one happens to be. That includes marrying a godly spouse, bringing up a family with Christian example and instruction, doing a good job at one's daily work (which, in the case of many women, is being a godly wife, mother and homemaker), regularly meeting with other Christians and using one's gifts and abilities generally in God's service.

Even in that, I might just manage a pass mark. But I think great care must be taken to prescribe biblical principles rather than one-size-fits-all little tests that don't necessarily apply to all Christians.

David Morrison of Springwood, NSW, AUS (18/02/2009)

I wish respond to your piece titled ‘Christian ministry and normal Christians’ in the February 2009 edition of The Briefing. Your article raises a very relevant issue for Christians who earnestly seek God’s will for their lives. I know of many (including myself) who have considered or who may continue to consider whether their lives include moving into full-time pastoral ministry. By this, I mean activities that would constitute teaching the Bible to an audience, or being an evangelist, youth worker, overseas missionary and the like. You seemed to have grouped these activities as ‘gospel work’ in your piece.

I agree that your summary of whether one stays in their job or becomes involved in ‘gospel work’ can “perpetuate an unhelpful dichotomy” that can lead to people who don’t go into full-time ‘gospel work’ feeling like second-class citizens.

However, I think your summary questions towards the very end of your piece actually do the opposite, and help to promote this unhelpful dichotomy as you have rightly put it.

There is no doubt Moore College and SMBC are God’s gift to Australia. I sincerely hope and pray that they continue to turn out God-focused graduates who want to help people in a very direct way to understand God’s grace, for understanding that is the door to freedom from the world’s lies, freedom from God’s wrath, righteousness before God and never-ending life.

However, I don’t believe that if you do not take up full-time ‘gospel work’ and remain in your job, you participate in a less worthy fashion in helping to redeem individuals and the culture around us.

I think your summary questions devalue the role of people in professions or other work who may be equally passionate about gospel-centred transformation for the common good, but who do so from their professions or jobs. I wish to direct you to Redeemer Presbyterian’s (New York) ministry initiative http://www.faithandwork.org. Here you will see on the front page the following: (italics mine)

Through work, we respond to God's mandate to continue in his creation. Through work we serve God as we serve those he places in our lives. Our work provides a crucible where we more fully recognize our own limitations at the same time that we experience God's majesty and grace.

Our ministry goals are three-fold:

• Equip individuals to fully apply the gospel to their lives and develop a Christian worldview of their profession or industry.
• Connect professionals within a field in ways that inspire and challenge gospel-centered behavior.
• Mobilize our leaders to become agents of change for the common good inside existing institutions and by creating new ones.

To suggest that applying your questions is the way to live the “normal Christian life” is almost unbiblical as it ignores the Christian worldview of professions or work, and ignores God’s instructions to Adam per Genesis 1.

I suggest that your view as expressed in your piece promotes ‘gospel work’ as being of greater value than normal professions or jobs. And can I also say this rather unbiblical approach often seems evident in many Briefing articles.

Can I also suggest that a better position on what constitutes the normal Christian life (if there is one) is to serve God’s purposes and to seek his righteousness first in the places (and jobs) he has placed us for now. And if we chose to leave our current station for something different, we should do so only on the basis of ability, opportunity and sincere calling.

Stuart Williamson of Toorak, VIC, AUS (18/02/2009)

Thanks for The Briefing. I appreciate the thinking it causes me to do in the ‘children under 5 stage’, and when my dad visits from the country, he always sits up in the lounge room with a pile of them, and reads for hours ...

Kirsty Kurilowicz (18/02/2009)

Here's my review of Ben Pfahlert's article: ‘Best evangelism Briefing shows how it's done’.

Julian Mann (18/02/2009)

In Briefing #365, Gavin Perkins wrote an Up Front piece which argued that “the good pastor is actually primarily an evangelist”. He argued for this on the basis that Jesus' parable in Luke 15 talks about a shepherd who leaves the 99 in order to find the one who is lost, and on the basis that Jesus saw the helpless crowds in Matthew 9 as “sheep without a shepherd”. He also reminded us of the example of our hero Richard Baxter in this regard (author of The Reformed Pastor).

While there is no doubt that Baxter's ministry was profoundly evangelistic (in lots of ways we should learn from), and while I have no gripe with pastors being urged to be evangelistically minded in their work, I do want to challenge the assertion that evangelism of the lost is the primary work of the pastor (or, as Gavin says in his conclusion, the pastor should be an evangelist “first and foremost”).

It seems to me that Gavin's bold conclusion rests on two texts that cannot carry the weight of his argument. (This is assuming we're agreed the life of Baxter can only ever be illustrative rather than authoritative.) Luke 15 sees Jesus describe the joy of God in the repentance of sinners. The illustration he uses is compelling, but clearly was not given as a mandate for the role of Christian pastors/shepherds. Not to mention the fact that even Jesus' own illustration seems to assume that the primary role of the shepherd is the care of the 99. The pursuit of the one is the exceptional work of the loving shepherd in Jesus' story.

Matthew 9, on the other hand, does remind us that Jesus sees his sheep as being those who are not yet following him as well as those who are (which, I suspect, is the significance of John 10:16 as well). But again, I feel compelled to ask whether a passage that talks about Jesus' unique mission to Israel can be pressed into the service of an argument about the first priority of Christian pastors. Might it not even be the case that to claim that Jesus' primary purpose is captured by these verses is reductionistic? I am willing to concede that Matthew 9 serves as a reminder that Jesus' elect sheep are not, as yet, all gathered into his pen. By extension, the Christian pastor—Jesus' under-shepherd—ought to share his concern for those sheep that as yet do not believe. But can we really find in these verses the conclusion that, first and foremost, the work of the Christian pastor is to seek out the lost sheep?

Surely when we turn to the rest of the New Testament, we discover that the language of shepherding, when applied to Christian leadership, consistently assumes the context of the Christian church. On my reading, this is the case in Acts 20:28-29, Ephesians 4:11, and 1 Peter 5:2-4. Moreover, even though Gavin may find texts in the later New Testament urging the pastor to “do the work of an evangelist”, and so on, it seems to me that he would struggle to find a single passage that might support the sizable claim he has made (that this role is primary). In my view, his argument fails to do justice to what the whole counsel of God tells us about who a shepherd is and what God calls them to.

Finally, can I say that from where this humble pastor sits, this argument actually matters a great deal. In a day when ‘missional church’ is the flavour of the month and pastors are being urged to be ‘missionaries’ to their suburbs, I think it would be tragedy of colossal proportions if all the shepherds God has raised up in our churches did what Gavin urges them to do—leaving the believers to look after themselves. Make a careless theological error here and a whole generation of God's people may suffer.

Simon Flinders of North Sydney, NSW, AUS (13/03/2009)

You probably already have this feedback. But as an agriculturalist, as well as a pastor who puts his foot in his mouth from time to time, I thought I should point out to Ben Pfahlert (‘Cold Turkish evangelism’) that herbicide is for killing plants. It would kill the wheat—not what Ben intended, I think! If the parasites he mentions are insects, an insecticide is needed to kill them.

Illustrations can be wonderful things. However, this is not an article I will be showing to the farmers in my parish because of its credibility level.

Pete Huxley of Wauchope, NSW, AUS (13/03/2009)

I would like to respond to Tony Payne's Up Front piece on ‘Christian ministry and normal Christians’. Has God lost his sovereign control over all the creation and those he has made in his image? Has he lost the relationship he established in the covenants in the Old Testament where by he commands, calls and charges his people to know him and his love for them? So did Jesus command, commission, call and charge his disciples in the New Testament? Does he now have to come begging to get us to do his will by ‘challenging’ us to consider his claims on us if it is convenient?

Where did this new view of God come from, and is it for this current generation of young Christians who are so focused on themselves, they find it difficult to submit to God's will for them among the choices they see about them?

I am very much afraid that the view of God seen in ‘challenge theology’ is a contract God who is far removed from the covenant-keeping God I know—who is bringing all history to its conclusion in his Son Jesus, whereby he gets all the glory, not us creatures. Those I have seen who operate out of challenge motivation soon end up in a despairing and guilty heap when the suffering comes and they have no more resources left in themselves to continue to work, taking up the challenge. Our hope must be in God alone, not in ourselves, in order to sustain us each day, walking in his grace alone, which equips and provides for the task.

It is a marvelous thing that there are so many studying in colleges in Sydney, so I trust that many of them will know a true ‘call’ some time soon, lest they be shipwrecked before the end of their days.

Elisabeth Hill of St Marys, SA, AUS (13/03/2009)

After reading Simon Flinder's response to Gavin Parkin's article (‘A truly reformed pastor’, Briefing #365), it occurred to me that Gavin has misunderstood Baxter's approach to ministry in Kidderminster. Baxter didn't leave his flock to evangelize; he evangelized his flock. Baxter understood his flock to be the whole town of Kidderminster. This is foundationally different to the way we see church today. Baxter even says he was blessed not to have any dissenters in his town, therefore his ministry responsibilities were clear.

Sean Heslehurst of Bomaderry, NSW, AUS (01/06/2009)