Monthly Archives: October 2021

The last temptations of the aged

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“They will still bear fruit in old age; they will be full of sap and very green….” (Psalm 92:14)

Can I tell you something odd?

While surfing this website’s articles from nearly twenty years of blogging, I came across an unfinished draft I had titled “the last temptations of the aged.”  I breezed right past it, in search of something else I was looking for.

A moment later, I was back.  That was an intriguing title, I thought.  Must have started that article a couple of years back. Wonder what it says.

After reading it, I deleted the entire thing.

It was indeed written about two years back, and then left in the program and forgotten.  But the strange part is that nothing about it is true in my life now.

Not a thing.

I had listed as temptations of the elderly things like not exercising as much, not eating as healthily as previously, reading more for indulgement rather than edification, wanting to sleep more, and such.

“Where was my head?” I wondered. “I’m not reading shallow novels, I’m exercising, and I’m trying my dead-level best to stay healthy.  I am not lying around resting all the time. I’m constantly at work serving the Lord.  In some ways, these are the most productive years of my life.”

Wonder what was going on to inspire such a depressing list.

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Learning to receive graciously

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Freely you have received; freely give. (Matthew 10:8)

Is there a Scripture telling us to “freely receive”? I can’t think of one.

The giver is in the power position.  While it is “more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35), many of God’s children have also found it easier to do so.

A friend suggested an article on “how to receive graciously.”  So, when someone suggests an article, I asked for their back story.  (There is always a reason behind these requests.)  Thank you, Pastor Doug Warren of Brandon, Mississippi.

In 1969 while a student at Mississippi College, I served a church as associate pastor/music. One day the pastor and I were calling on seniors in their homes.  Mr. and Mrs. Thom were an elderly couple, she was an invalid, and they were poor.  As this was the Christmas season when our churches promote the “Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions,” at one point Mrs. Thom asked her husband to “get my purse.”

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Seven of the most amazing things Jesus ever said

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“No man ever spoke like this man” (John 7:46).

(Please note below that all seven of these “things Jesus said” are from the same passage in Matthew 11.) 

Somewhere around the house I have an old book with the wonderful title of 657 of the Best Things Ever Said.  It would not surprise you to know most of them are silly.

As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, doubtless it’s true that the “best things ever said” is also arbitrary.

With one exception.

Literally hundreds of millions of people across this world agree with the judgement of the early Galileans that “No one ever spoke like Jesus.”

Our Lord spoke a solid one thousand mind boggling things never heard before on Planet Earth, all of them surprising and wonderful and memorable. And, let’s be honest, many who heard Jesus also found His words provocative, offensive, and even blasphemous.

When Jesus stood to preach, no one was bored.

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What “be strong in the Lord” really means

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“Now consider how great this man was…. Now, beyond all contradiction the lesser is blessed by the better.”(Hebrews 7:4,7)

I’m going to make a series of statements here about “who is greater” or stronger or whatever.  The subject is still a work in progress in my mind, but I hope to get it started in yours.

First:  The one who blesses is greater than the one blessed.

According to the anonymous writer of Hebrews, Melchizedek was greater than Abraham since it was he who blessed the patriarch and not vice versa.  The blessor is greater than the blessee, to paraphrase 7:7.

Thomas Beckett was the archbishop of Canterbury martyred in the 12th century. One issue that kept resurfacing in those days was whether the king of a country had the right to “invest” the new archbishop with the symbols of his position, implying that the king himself was granting powers to the spiritual leader.  The symbolism meant a great deal. The pope, to no one’s surprise, wanted to end this practice, insisting that the church is autonomous and beholden to no earthly power. Kings fought to keep all evidence in place that the church existed under their authority and its leaders should obey them above the pope.

The dispute illustrates Hebrews 7:7 perfectly. If the one giving the blessing is greater than the one receiving it, he is then the top dog. Such symbolism meant everything in medieval times.

Scripture informs us of numerous other such truisms worth our consideration. Let’s try these on for size.

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How to change the culture of a church

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“I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18).

It’s His church and He will build it.

Keep saying that to yourself.

I received a note from a young pastor in another state, along with his resume’. He said, “I’d be interested in coming to your city to pastor. However, I do not want to waste my time on a congregation of self-focused, carnal and complacent church members. I feel led to pastor a church poised for growth, where the people want to reach the lost for Jesus.”

I wrote back, “If we ever have such a church, you’ll have to get in line, friend.  Every pastor in the country will be clamoring to go there.”

It would be nice to serve no one but spiritually mature and responsive believers.  It would be heavenly not to have to lead troublesome business meetings where the deacons want to go one direction, the personnel committee another, and the congregation wanting nothing to do with either.

Most churches I know are not “poised for growth,” but are dealing with issues of one kind or other.

That’s why God has to “call”  (and “send”) pastors to these churches. No one would voluntarily go to many of them.

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A note of sanity about Halloween

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“See that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.” (Colossians 2:8)

In a seminary class I was teaching, a young man preparing for the ministry wrote on a paper, “The only thing I really fear is zombies.”

I wrote back, “You fear zombies? Zombies??”

Hey friend, I have a message for you: Zombies. Do. Not. Exist.

Someone made them up. The nonsense about “the walking dead” might make for interesting story lines for books and movies–I said “might”–but they are the figment of someone’s imagination, and nothing else.

Neither do wooden puppets take on human personalities and kill the people around them. On full moons, certain men do not become werewolves. And old Plymouths do not suddenly come alive, leave the junkyard, and run over everyone in their path.

Stephen King and others like him are toying with their readers. They are doing one thing and it’s such a big thing, I’m surprised that all theists (God-believers) haven’t figured it out yet and been complimented: They are imagining how things would be in this world if God were not alive, on the throne, and in control, and evil was allowed to run amok.

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Helpful preacher friends can be such a burden!

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My journal tells of a revival in our church in 1992.  After the final service, my wife and I took the guest evangelist and singer to lunch.  And there they proceeded to unload.

My journal…

At lunch for one solid hour, they filled me with their suggestions for improving our work here.  Finally Margaret intervened and said, “You guys are overdoing it.” I was about to overdose on their helpfulness!

I don’t recall asking for their input.  And true, they presumed upon our relationship.  I’m confident they felt they were serving the Lord well by suggesting ways we could get this big church off the ground and into the air.  And because they have been in full-time itinerant ministry for decades and have seen it all, they have definite opinions and convictions on what works and what doesn’t.  And they are friends, although not with a lengthy history. Anyway…

My well-meaning friends had no clue the forces I was contending with inside the membership of the church.  But, they wanted to help me, so I listened.  And praise the Lord for a good wife.  She spoke up and told them that was enough already. Smiley-face goes here.

She was right.  There is such a thing as overdoing a good thing.

In retirement, I’m often in a different church every Sunday.  I preach in big ones and little ones, taking them as the invitations arrive.  And frequently after we’re finished, I do have thoughts on what the pastor can do here.

But unless I’m asked, I keep it to myself.

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Church staff rules to live by

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I once asked some minister friends their advice and lessons learned concerning church staff relationships. What follows are some of the best of the responses. In no particular order.

1. Jim says, “Be very careful whom you trust completely.”

In over three decades of ministry, Jim says he has been brutally betrayed at least 3 times. It has made him wary about trusting anyone with anything confidential.

I’m recalling a time when the personnel committee and I were dealing with a sensitive issue, long since forgotten. I said, “Can I say something in here and it not go any further?” The chairman said, “Pastor, I wouldn’t say anything in here you do not want to get out.”

That was a courageous thing for him to do. As subtly as he knew how, the chairman was cautioning me about trusting some of the people in that room. In time, I learned he knew whereof he was speaking.

2. Andy says, “First, pastor the staff. Be their shepherd.”

Something inside us wants to protest, that, well, the staff are all ministers and they don’t need pastoring. They do. In fact, preacher, so do you.

I have heard that the typical ministerial staff wants the pastor to be their friend and the congregation’s pastor; the congregation, however, wants him to be their friend and the staff’s pastor.

My answer is: be both. I’m capable of pastoring friends.

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Pastor, leave the false humility behind

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There is a genuine, much-needed humility. And there is the fake kind.

We’ve all seen it and some of us have done it.

The pastor strides to the pulpit, opens the Bible, reads his text, announces his subject, then begins with an apology. “I have no right to speak to you on this subject.” “Many of you know more about this subject than I do.” “I’m not sure why the Lord laid this on my heart, but I’m going to give it a try.”

The well-meaning pastor intends it as demonstrating transparency, leveling with his people, admitting what they already know–that he’s human and fallible. A fellow struggler. One of them.  However….

Many in the congregation are thinking, “Well, if you don’t know, preacher, we sure don’t. Get it over with and let’s go home.”

I rise today, pastors, to say to you that this kind of false humility has no place in the Kingdom of God. It most certainly has no place in the pulpit where God expects His servant to be bold and His people expect their pastor to be faithful.

Such self-deprecation cuts the ground out from under everything the minister is about to share. It diminishes the authority with which God intends him to proclaim His Word. He ties his own hands and weakens his effectiveness before he even begins.

Now, there is another side to this, of course, when the pastor acts as though he were the Lord God Himself and gives the impression that his word is the only one  that counts.

This is pride; the first is fear.

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The preaching we like; the preacher we prefer

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Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Go, you seer, flee away to the land of Judah.  And there eat bread and there do your prophesying!  But no longer prophesy at Bethel, for it is a sanctuary of the king and a royal residence.” (Amos 7:12-13).

My journal from a number of years back has this:

Got a letter today from a sweet, humble (really), godly lady who criticized the preaching of our Thanksgiving guest preacher.  She said, ‘Notice what he did last Tuesday night.  He told of the 9 thankless lepers and suggested reasons why they did not give thanks. Many people left our church when he was here because of this kind of preaching.”

Our speaker had been the interim pastor before I arrived. For some 18 months he had ministered to our troubled congregation as they tried to recover from a devastating split.  He had been the essence of faithfulness.

She continued, “Our people want line upon line, precept upon precept.”

I wrote in the journal: “Why does this anger me? Because of the narrowness of what ‘our people’ want.  because it’s a mark of an immature congregation that they have to have sermons one way or not at all. Because it’s a subtle manipulation to make me into the kind of preacher they think they had before.”

There’s no indication in the journal what I replied to her.  I was in my first year in that pastorate and my guess is I said something sweet to her.  Something like, “Thank you for telling me that.  Please pray I will bring sermons that feed our people.”

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