01b) General Introduction, Part 2 (9/9/1994)

Explanation of Formative Presuppositions

0:01 Alright, as we continue now with this introductory lecture of general introduction, we've covered the basic explanation of the title of the course, Pastoral Theology and its relationship to the other theological disciplines. I've set before you a description of the nature of these lectures, and now, what is very crucial, I want to give you an explanation of the formative presuppositions of the entire course. A presupposition can be simply a prejudice or a personal preference imposed upon a subject, or it can be a specific expression of a biblical reality. It can be something I am assuming because I see it taught in scripture and I'm convinced that it is essential to proper thinking in a given area. Well, I hope that these formative presuppositions...

Presupposition 1: The Primacy of Preaching

0:59 fit the description of the latter kind of presupposition, and those presuppositions are basically five, they are listed as A, B, C, D, and E in your printed notes. First of all, my first presupposition in framing this entire course is the primacy of preaching among the public duties of the ministry. There are, as we shall see...

1:29 both public and private duties committed to the servants of Christ, but among the public duties such as counseling the distressed, giving oversight to the people of God, calling upon the sick, evangelism, etc., none is so vital as that of your stated seasons of public preaching and teaching. I am approaching this course with the conviction...

2:00 I believe rooted in scripture that the primary means ordained of God, not the exclusive, but the primary means ordained of God for the gathering out of his elect and the edification of his people is that of preaching by a God-equipped, Christ-given gift to his church. 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 18 and verse 21...

2:30 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 18 and verse 21 are two critical texts which set forth the biblical basis of this presupposition. In 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 18, the apostle having said that his primary mission from Christ was not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made void, gives the rationale for this commitment to the primacy of preaching. For the word, the message of the cross, is to them that are perishing foolishness, but unto us who are being saved, it is the power of God. It is the message, the word of the cross, that is the instrument in God's hands to effect the saving change. But is it that message presented in various ways? Or is it that message...

3:30 Primarily conveyed in preaching. Verse 21 answers that question. For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the kerugma, the thing preached. And it's the only valid translation of that word.

3:55 It is the thing preached. And what is the thing? Preached. It's the word of the cross.

4:02 It's the message that sets forth not only the fact of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, but the divinely revealed significance of that fact. We do not simply preach the cross in some innocuous, undefined, undefinable way, but in terms of a revealed message. But the kerugma is not just the thing preached. It is the thing.

4:30 Preached. The kerugma is the message of the keruts, the herald. And the keruts is the appointed mouthpiece of the sovereign, who would come into the village and say in the name of your sovereign, and would announce the message. And so preaching can never be lined up with other things as though it were one among many means that God has ordained.

5:01 It's primacy is embedded in such statements as verse 21. It was God's good pleasure. This was God's choice through that which the world regards foolishness, namely the thing preached. The message focusing upon Christ crucified and the method.

5:25 A mere mortal heralding in the name of his sovereign. This message. And demanding a response of faith upon the promise of eternal life and upon the threat of eternal death in the face of unbelief. The primacy of preaching.

5:46 And likewise in Romans 10 verses 13 to 15. And I commend to you for an edifying devotional experience. If you have Professor Murray on Romans, if you don't have him on Romans, it's in the Academy. It's in the Academy.

6:01 Read his comments on this section where the apostle, having demonstrated that the message that he preaches focusing upon Christ, holding forth the righteousness of God, one received by faith alone. He says with respect to that message as it is brought to men and becomes the instrument of their salvation. Verse 12. There is no distinction between Jew and Greek.

6:30 For the same Lord is Lord. The Lord of all. And rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

6:40 Now the questions. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? How can they call upon an unknown Christ? How shall they believe in him whom they have not heard?

6:58 How can they believe in a Christ whose voice they have not heard? How shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? And the language of the text, and as I say, I commend to you Professor Murray's careful exposition of it, points us to the fact that this is not underscoring the truth taught elsewhere in Scripture.

7:26 That God can and does use the humble witness and testimony of any of us. Of his children and even of non-Christians to bring people to repentance and faith. If he can open the mouth of a dumbass to be an effectual mouthpiece to a mad prophet, God can open the mouth of a rational creature. But as an ordinary means, God's primary method of calling out his own is through those who preach as those who are sent.

8:02 Not those who send themselves. Not those who send themselves. Not those who send themselves. Not those who appoint themselves.

8:05 They are sent in the language of one who's written an excellent work in some aspects with respect to the call to the ministry sent by the sovereign. I like the phrase. Sent by the sovereign. It fits the whole concept of the servant of God as a kerux who bears the kerugma.

8:25 And therefore, this whole course is framed by this presupposition of the primacy. The primacy of preaching among the public duties of the ministry. It is the agreed testimony of scripture and church history that the pulpit is, in the words of Spurgeon, the Thermopylae of Christendom. And those of you who remember some ancient history, Thermopylae was the mountain pass in which the Persians destroyed the Spartans.

8:58 It's the place where the battle was won for one nation and lost for another. Spurgeon went on. He went on to say, It is in the pulpit that the fight will be lost or won. To us ministers, the maintenance of our power in the pulpit should be our great concern.

9:16 End quote. And brethren, I say with grief, but I believe with accuracy, it's been the erosion of this conviction, which in great measure has led to the shoddiness of the preaching in our day, the paralysis of godly ambition, to excel in pulpit usefulness, and the pitiful inadequacies of formal ministerial training, reflects that this presupposition has been lost. And we send out organizers, send out scholars, and our schools are sending out men skilled in a host of things. But the tragedy is we are not seeing preachers coming out with burning, burning hearts, and with clear heads, and with a conviction, not that they are something, but that almighty God has marked out preaching for a unique function in the calling out of his elect, and the building up of his own. And as those who follow the track of scripture marked out by the sovereign, they counted their privilege to be set apart for this noble and glorious task. Broadus, in his classic work on, Sermon Preparation, in the introduction to the entire work where he is treating

10:41 the importance of preaching, and the difficulty of preaching well, makes this statement, page three of the Dargan edition.

10:51 Any subsequent editions are not worth the money you pay for them, but the Dargan edition is considered the best edition. This is what Broadus says. In every age of Christianity, In every age of Christianity, since John the Baptist drew crowds in the desert, there has been no great religious movement, no restoration of scripture truth, and reanimation of genuine piety, without new power in preaching, both as its cause and its effect. Now you see where your historical theology comes in?

Presupposition 2: The Vital Place of Biblical Church Order

11:32 See how it impinges on this? He's making a statement that, in every age of Christianity, since John the Baptist drew crowds into the desert, there has been no great religious movement, no restoration of scripture truth, and reanimation of genuine piety, without new power in preaching, both as cause and as effect. And in your study of historical theology, I believe you will increasingly see that, that Broadus was not simply trying to pad in an enlarged way the worth of his own discipline teaching homiletics, but accurately stating reality as unfolded in God's providential dealings with his people over the centuries. Well, we come to the second presupposition, and I must make better speed through these, and that is the vital place of biblical church, the church order as the supportive context of effective preaching. As this course unfolds, there will be lectures dealing with the worship of the church, with the constituting and function of an eldership,

12:57 with church discipline, with church prayer meetings. Why should such concerns enter a course in pastoral theology? Well, I answer that it's because, of a presupposition, which your instructor has, based upon what he regards to be a clear apostolic mentality, as expressed in 1 Timothy 3, verses 14 and 15. And that apostolic mentality is that the details of church behavior are of critical importance to God's glory, and to the efficient administration of the manifold tasks of the ministry.

13:41 As you know, in what we call the pastoral epistles, in these letters to Timothy and to Titus, we have, particularly in 1 Timothy, a broad spectrum of issues addressed as part of Timothy's job description in his ongoing labors there in Ephesus. But in the midst of this, the apostle says in verse 14 of chapter 3, These things I write unto you, hoping to come unto you shortly, but if I tarry long, that you may know how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. Amazing statement. He's given all kinds of directions to Timothy with respect to the maintenance of purity of doctrine in chapter 1, and shutting the mouths of those who would seek to infect the church, with non-edifying teaching, etc. But he says, Timothy, my burden in writing as I write is that, hoping to come shortly, these are the things that would be upon my heart, but if in the providence of God I am withheld from coming, I'm deeply concerned that in carrying out all these other ministerial tasks and responsibilities,

15:06 no little part of which are aspects of truth that Timothy is to preach, these things command and teach. As he says in several places, verse 11 of chapter 4, these things command and teach. If thou put the brethren in mind of these things, thou should be a good minister, nourished up in the words of faith, etc. But he says in the midst of it, Timothy, I'm passionately concerned about what many would call the niggling details of church order.

15:36 I'm writing details on church order. He's writing about the primacy of the church order. He's writing about the primacy of the church order. He's writing about the primacy of prayer, who should pray, the things for which they should pray.

15:46 He's writing about women and what they should and should not do, and even talking about how they dress when they come to church. Oh, come off it. Don't we have bigger things to be concerned about? Well, apparently the apostle felt there was no bigger thing to be concerned about and has set forth in this what I'm trying to articulate in a principle, namely that the supportive context of effective preaching, is godly biblical church order.

16:18 Extract it from that context and you've rinsed it loose from its apostolic setting. The same perspective is found in Titus 1, 5 and following. Titus, why have I left you at Crete? Not primarily to extend the evangelistic outreach of your own ministry and of the church, though that would certainly be a secondary, tertiary part of his purpose.

16:47 He said, I've left you at Crete to do this, to set in order the things that are lacking. Lacking in what? In church order, in church stability, in church life, in church leadership. He's going to give Titus a tremendous rubric of what to preach.

17:05 Now you've got to tell the old men this, tell the old women this, tell the young men this, tell the young women this, tell the... But he says, I'm concerned that it be done in the context of solid apostolic church order.

17:21 Hence, this presupposition conditions all that you will hear in this course, convinced, as I am, that it is a biblical and an apostolic perspective. Let me put it this way. Under the blessing of God, when preaching is what it ought to be, now notice, under the blessing of God, when preaching is what it ought to be in content, form, and spiritual energy, a vigorous, healthy, well-ordered church will become both its fruit and its validation. When preaching is what it ought to be, a healthy, vigorous, well-ordered church will become both its fruit and its validation. Paul could say with all the problems at Corinth, I came to you preaching. And then he says what characterized his preaching, not the canons of your rhetoricians there at Corinth. I did not come in what you would call wisdom of words, declaring the testimony of God, and I was among you in weakness and fear and much trembling.

18:35 My speech and preaching were not with enticing words of men's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest in the wisdom of God. that your faith should not rest in the wisdom of God. that your faith should not rest in the wisdom of God. of men but in the power of god first corinthians 2 1 to 5 but he could also say you are our epistle i came preaching you are our epistle you have listened to these people who undermine my authority and you say that i must now descend to the level of unknown people who traveling from place to place to make it valid that their profession is what they say it is they bring their letters of commendations you're saying that i must now as it were come on the level of ordinary unknown people to prove who i am he said you corinthians you are my epistle of commendation your existence as a church at corinth even with all of your problems you are the validation of who i am as an apostle sent by christ and the very fact that paul's harsh letter that is lost and the two letters that we have were instrumental to put that church back on its feet validates that he had as a wise master builder laid a foundation of gold silver and precious stone and the crisis might have raised question marks i've often thought if you and i had come into the church at corinth before the

20:01 first letter was sent and we had not been told who founded that church and we come in and here's this charismatic free-for-all going on and people babbling away and in their so-called tongues and and women standing up and prophesying and people leapfrogging one another so it was like a madhouse and then we were invited over to someone's home for a meal and they had other church people in and the afternoon ended up in a big argument paulus is the best preacher and someone says no sir re i'm peter's my i mean just think of all if you had been thrust into that church you'd have come away saying who in the world ever started this ecclesiastical loony bin and ready to harshly judge the founder of that church wouldn't but he could say as a wise master builder i laid a solid foundation you see he had confidence that his work was not a work of fleshly methods a fleshly message accommodated to men's natural desires he hadn't indulged in the church marketing nonsense and the subsequent history of that church proves that paul was not as it were protecting his own image that his confidence was well-granted and he was not a church builder that's just a little aside as i say once in a while when those things come those are what a friend of mine calls throwaways but the principle is this brethren that the church in its

Presupposition 3: Indispensable Prerequisite of Vital Godliness

21:24 vigor in its life and its well-ordered state is both the fruit and the validation of our preaching ministry and i have found over the years in this place with all of our faults and sins god alone knows them fully i know enough of them starting with the preacher to ever keep us from thinking we've attained anything but in spite of all of that how many people have said before i ever stood to open my mouth to preach just watching the interaction of parents with their children in the foyer and seeing the quiet atmosphere of whole families sitting preparing to worship their hearts were moved godward and expectant before the preacher ever opened his mouth that's what i'm talking about that's what i'm talking about that a well-ordered church is the context in which effect god honoring preaching is to be carried on and that's one of my presuppositions and that's why in the course there is a considerable emphasis on matters of church life in order but then pressing on the third presupposition is a conviction that a life of vital godliness is an indispensable prerequisite for all ministerial efficiency this presupposition is found conditional to the whole course it's a no

22:51 all those approved sources the demands life is the lap inner no aspect known assembly of pastoral duty which does not head eats roots in the state of the minister's own inner life. We're back to the text we considered in orientation last week, Proverbs 4.23. Guard your heart above all that you guard, for out of it are the issues of life. And when the apostle writes to Timothy and how he is to deal with those who have aspirations for the eldership, remember the first requirement. If any man

23:52 desires overseership, he desires a good work. The overseer must be blameless. Must be. It doesn't say possessed of an attractive, winsome personality. Must have a charisma that will draw everything from gurgling babies to a near-sighted, senile old... No, he must be blameless. No just cause to accuse him of inconsistency of life or of character. And that conviction, that a life of vital godliness is an indispensable prerequisite of all ministerial efficiency, is rooted in such passages as these. In a work that has gone out of print, The Preacher and His Models, a reprint of the old Yale series of lectures on preaching. And for those of you that want the information, it's The Preacher and His Models by James Stalker. S-T-A-L-K-E-R.

24:58 Baker did the last reprint. It was originally printed in 18... or they were the lectures of 1891. Writing on this very theme, listen to Stalker's perceptive words. Perhaps of all causes of ministerial failure, the most common lies here.

25:17 and of all ministerial qualifications this though the simplest is the most trying either we have never had spiritual experience deep and thorough enough to lay bare to us the mysteries of the soul or our experience is too old and we've repeated it so often it's become stale to ourselves or we've made reading a substitute for thinking we've allowed the number and pressure of the duties of our office to curtail our prayers and shut us out of our studies. Or we've learned the professional tone in which things ought to be said and we can fall into it without present feeling. You see what he's saying? A tone that once was the fruit of inner feeling is maintained while the feeling has shriveled and died. Power for work like ours is only to be acquired in secret. And you'll meet these words later on. It's only the man who has a

26:26 large, varied, and original life with God who can go on speaking about the things of God with fresh interest. But a thousand things happen to interfere with such a prayerful and meditative life. You see, a man who begins his ministry with this presupposition gripping him, my life is not for me. I'm not for you. I'm not for you. I'm not for you. I'm not for you. I'm not for you.

26:49 I'm not for you. I'm not for you. I'm not for you. I'm not for you. I'm not for you. I'm not for you. I'm not for you.

26:49 It's the life of my ministry. And God owns that ministry with its taproots in the closet. That very ministry, often by its demands, eventually shuts the man out of his closet and shrivels the very taproots of what brought him into those demands. Tragic thing when it happens.

27:12 But alas, it does. That's pages 54 and 5. Hear the same man of God on page 167 when he says, We are so constituted that what we hear depends very much for its effect on how we are disposed to the one who speaks to us. The regular hearers of a minister gradually form in their minds, almost unawares, an image of what he is, into which they put everything which they themselves remember about him and everything they've heard of his past life. And when he rises on Sunday in the pulpit, it's not the man visible there at the moment. They listen to, but this image which stands behind him and determines the precise weight and effect of every sentence which he utters. And God is so constituted that that's true. You cannot give your heart and mind and conscience to a man that you know is a charlatan, unless you're a fool and you want to commit a kind of spiritual suicide. No,

28:21 we are. We are so constituted that the effect of what is spoken in great measure is determined by our perception of the one who is speaking to us. And this presupposition that a life of vital godliness is the indispensable prerequisite of all ministerial efficiency, if you're uncomfortable with that, you're going to be uncomfortable with this course. It was said of an old divine, and I love this, he fed you with his doctrine.

28:52 And he edified you by his example. Fed you with his doctrine, edified you by his example. He wooed for Christ in his preaching, and he allured you to Christ by his walking. May God grant, brethren, that that can be said of us. We feed with our doctrine and edify by our example, woo for Christ in our preaching, and allure to Christ by our walking. I found that in the old book, again, it's out of print, the gospel mystery of sanctification by Marshall, page 252. But I hasten now to the fourth presupposition. And this is a mouthful, brethren, but you're not here as kindergartners. And so, I venture to give you the mouthful.

Presupposition 4: The Confluence of Divine and Human Elements

29:46 The fourth presupposition of this course, and it is crucial, it is the constant and delicate confluence. —— interaction of the divine and human elements in every aspect of the work of the ministry.

30:03 Now, what do I mean by the words confluence and interaction? Well, confluence, the confluence of two rivers is the point at which they flow together. And you cannot tell which is the Allegheny and which is the Monongahela at the confluence of those rivers out there in the area where that airline tragedy occurred last night. And I'm concerned that we understand that word and its significance because there is a wealth of sound biblical theology that in my understanding can only be expressed by the term confluence. When the two rivers come together, there were two rivers now coming into one. A confluence of two rivers but, in a sense, the two rivers still exist, though in form they exist as one. And interaction, we could use the word interpenetration, that one is always acting, the other is present, though at the level of our consciousness we may only be conscious of the one, there is never any true acting of the one without the other. There is a constant and delicate confluence coming together.

31:20 So that we can't sort them out. Once the rivers have come together, you can't say, well, this scoop of the river is Monongahela and this is Allegheny. You can't separate them. And in the interaction, we cannot accurately and precisely push them apart. And there is this constant and delicate confluence and interaction of the divine, that is, the direct, the supernatural, the imminent operation of God the Holy Spirit, and human elements, that is, the conscious, deliberate actings of all of the faculties of our redeemed humanity. And this confluence and interaction touches every aspect of, and that should not be word of the ministry, should be work of the ministry. Please don't tell Anne that she had a typo there. She did Yeoman's service in getting all this material ready when I dumped it on her yesterday. But

32:14 correct that, work of the ministry. Now, it's vital that we at least grasp a few of the four elements of the ministry. And I think that's what we're going to do. passages which teach this, and I have them listed there for you. 1 Timothy 4, verses 14 and 15.

32:32 As Paul has laid upon Timothy a vast array of responsibilities, he now turns to Timothy himself and says, Timothy, verse 14, do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Timothy, where did your gifts come from? They were given. They came as a divine deposit. They were given in a context of an unusual operation of direct revelatory activity on the part of God. There were special prophecies. But he says, look, don't neglect that gift. Well, if it comes from God and it is given, don't I just need to sit back and ask the God who gave it to make it effectual? He says, no, don't you neglect it. Though it is

33:22 given and given by God, it is given by God. It is given by God. It is given by God. It is given by God. Given in an unusual setting, you have a responsibility for its nurture, for its cultivation.

33:31 Don't neglect it. Verse 15, be diligent in these things. Notice, give yourself wholly to them that your progress may be manifest unto all. Timothy, if your progress as a servant of Christ, as a man of God, progress in grace, progress in the exercise of gifts, progress in usefulness, if it is to be real and manifest, it will only come in the way of deliberate, conscious, diligent effort on your part. Be diligent in these things.

34:08 Give yourself wholly to them. Verse 16, pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching. Continue in these things, for in doing this you will both, strange language, save yourself. And then that here you, the great instrument through which we have the clearest articulation of the absolute monergism of grace, the absolute sovereignty of grace, the author of Romans 9, it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that shows mercy. The author of Ephesians chapter 1, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, according as he chose us in the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the Son of God, the Son of the Father. And he hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, according as he chose us in the name of the Father, the Son of God, the Son of the Father. And he hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, according as he chose us in the name of the Father, the Son of God, the Son of the Father. How can he write language like this? Save yourself and your hearers. If we were to build a theology

35:04 on this, we'd have something worse than semi-Pelagianism. We'd have pure Pelagianism here. This without Pelagius, Pelagius. Well, why does the apostle have no scruples about using this language? Because he understood that there is a constant and delicate confluence in the direction of divine and human elements in every aspect of the work of the ministry. And when it's time to focus on the human element, he does so without embarrassment, as though they were the only elements that existed. Timothy, you be diligent. You give yourself. You take heed to yourself, to your teaching. You continue in doing this. You'll save yourself and save your hearers.

35:51 Now, I'm not embarrassed with the language of the Holy Ghost, nor am I uncomfortable with it.

35:57 However, the same apostle goes on in 2 Timothy, 1, 6, to put two things together that on the surface would seem contradictory. 2 Timothy,

36:09 1 in verse 6, for which cause I put you in remembrance that you stir up the gift of God, literally stir into flame the gift of God which is in you, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. It was the gift of God. It came to you sovereignly. It came in conjunction with my apostolic ministry. It came in conjunction with my apostolic ministry. It came in conjunction with my apostolic ministry. Well, here you see the emphasis is upon the activity of God in the conferral of the gift. But now what does he say? He doesn't say, Timothy, pray that God will blow upon the flame of your gift. He says, you stir up that gift into flame. You make it go from glowing embers to a crackling, burning fire. You do it, Timothy. You see the delicate confluence and interaction. Then we come to 2 Timothy 2.

37:04 He begins the chapter by pointing him to the operation of God. Thou therefore, my child, be strengthened. Where? In the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Derive your strength out of the virtue of your union with Christ or out of the virtue of Christ in the light of your union with him. Timothy, you are not sufficient of yourself to think anything is from yourself. Your sufficiency is of God. Timothy, you're but a branch.

37:36 Christ is the vine. The sap of life is in him and must flow from him to you. Be strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. There the emphasis is upon the divine operation. But when we come to verse 7, after he's given him several exhortations couched in figurative languages and in metaphors, notice how he brings these two things together. Verse 7. Consider what I say. And he uses a verb that has as its same root, word for the mind. Exercise your noose, your noggin, your brain, your intellectual faculties.

38:15 Focus them upon what I say. For the Lord shall give you understanding in all things. I love that text. We would have written it this way. Timothy, think hard upon what I've said. And as you do, your sanctified exercise of mind will be the path of illumination. Paul just throws a curve out of it and says, you think. The Lord will give understanding. Well, who gives the understanding? It's the Lord. But he gives it in the way of the exercise of all of our God-given faculties. What do we have? We have this delicate confluence and interaction of the divine and the human elements in Timothy's accurate perception of the very words of God which came through the apostle. And you see it again in chapter 2 and verse 15. Give diligence.

39:10 The very word speaks itself, spoudazo. In a present imperative, give constant, diligent activity and endeavor to present yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, handling aright, cutting a straight course in the word of truth. Timothy, if you are to be an approved workman who has no need of embarrassment in the presence of his master, it will come in the way of personal engagement. Of all of your faculties, give diligence. Give diligence. This is your responsibility. Yet in the language of John 15, 4, the Lord Jesus says, without me, you can do nothing. And the text that to my judgment is the watershed text in the whole of the New Testament where this confluence and this constant interaction of the divine and human is patent is Philippians 2, verses 12 and 13. So then, my beloved, even as you've always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, to make it patent that your obedience was in no way dependent upon your love and esteem for

40:28 me. However that motive may have entered in, make it evident that your supreme attachment is to the Christ whom I preached, to the Savior whom I set before you. Therefore, as you always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, to make it patent that your obedience was in neither. Wherever you come, much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

40:54 Give yourself in all the faculties of your redeemed humanity to working out the salvation graciously freely bestowed upon you in Christ, and do it with utmost seriousness and with the engagement of your whole being. The fear and trembling is not that of the guilty criminal looking over his shoulder wondering when someone has said something may haveánhed him. Instead he therapeutic him that he was the man that someone had been waiting and his name was God. He's theAM.

41:14 in a blue uniform is going to recognize him. No. It's the fear and trembling of one who knows his own native weakness, knows his own inability, and yet knows the seriousness of the issues at stake. It's not the fear and trembling of the guilty criminal, but the earnest, passionate desire of a loving son who wants to please his father. And what gives us encouragement? So to give ourselves to the working out of our salvation with such earnestness, the confidence, verse 13, it is God who is working in you, now notice, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. God is constantly at work in you, effecting the very actings of your will in the direction to which I've pointed you. And he not only effectually works in you to will, but also gives the enablement to perform, to will and to work. Well, if God is at work in me,

42:20 both inclining my will to do what is pleasing in his sight and giving me the power to do it, then surely I must just let go and let God. No. I must engage all of my faculties, because he does not work in me, bypassing my will and my performance, but securing my will and my performance. Brethren, for some of us who wandered in the wastelands of everything from let go and let God and breathe in the spirit and rely and relax and got ourselves entangled in all kinds of webs of self-destruction, to come to grips with this truth was the most liberating thing in the world. I need never fear that my working will outstrip, God's working in me never never do I need to fear but you see his working in me to will and to work is beneath the level of my consciousness I know God's working in me to will when I choose to do that which is in the direction of his revealed will and I look back and say Lord left to myself I never would have done that thank you for working on my willer and then having worked on my willer

43:38 you gave me the ability to do what I knew was pleasing in your sight but as John Owen says in his classic treatment of Romans 8 13 God does not work without us or against us doesn't work without us or against us but he works with us and in us he works in us and with us not without us or against us and brethren you won't understand the way this quote says but I know he works with us and against us and I know that he works with us and in us and with us not without us or against us and brethren you won't understand the way this course is laid out unless you understand that that is a very fundamental presupposition as I approach every aspect of the work of the ministry when we come to such matters as preaching preaching must be analyzed we must be concerned with such things as our voice and the use of our voice and the place of order and structure and all of the rest and must labor at these things but there are other aspects of preaching that are so entirely out of our control that we'd be fools to think that we could in any way either predict them or manage them there is this constant and delicate confluence and interaction of the divine and human elements in every aspect of the work of the ministry

Presupposition 5: Necessity of Critical Analysis and Structured Presentation

44:54 so if at times I seem to be almost speaking as though the whole thing were up to us just hang in there won't be long before there'll be some emphases that make you think well is he talking like the whole thing it's up to God well wherever the emphasis of scripture goes and the perspectives of proven guides that's where we want to go and God help us as we attempt to then there is a fifth presupposition and this I can touch on briefly and that is I'm presupposing the necessity of subjecting this area of Christian endeavor that is the work of the ministry to specific critical analysis and structured presentation I'm presupposing that this whole field covered in pastoral theology must be subjected to critical analysis and structured presentation while it is true that much can be learned by example and by an observant I Paul said to Timothy you have fully known my manner of life my doctrine my persecutions I'm presupposing that the subject of pastoral theology

46:17 ought not to be left to any less critical analysis and structured presentation than any other theological discipline can a person sitting under a sound biblical ministry that expounds the word of God responsibly become a theologian in his or her own right over the course of years yes yes they ought to does that mean there is no place in an adult Sunday school class for dealing with the doctrine of God as we've done throughout the summer months and having what someone might pick up by bits and pieces over many years a couple of months no it is proper and right and in the best interest of building up the saints unto the work of service and so i'm presupposing that these things everything from the life of the man of god to preaching to the matter of the relationship of the emotions to truth and to the presentation of truth to aspects of public prayer all of these things need to be subjected to critical analysis and to a structured presentation as best as god enables us to do so so that's one of my

Course Scope and Conduct of Lectures

47:36 presuppositions and it has driven me and i've gone to the old masters and as you'll find along the way there are certain conclusions that i had come to tentatively but i didn't find anyone else saying them and i never uttered them until i could get some confirming voice in terms of what god had made known to his people in the past one of the marks of every heretic and everyone guilty of serious error is that he acts as though the son of truth were setting in the west till it arose on his fair head ain't nobody know nothing till i came along and i'm scared to death of that and that of course in itself exposes the present obsession with campings notions of christ coming nobody else has seen what i've seen i'm very humbly acknowledging god's been very good to me why it's stinking rotten pride to think that god has reserved this marvelous insight for him well it would be stinking rotten pride for me to impose upon you men any fruits of critical analysis and structured presentation that did not have some confirming voices from the past who saw the same things in scripture or those things that are not explicit in scripture but are there as our expression says in the light of general revelation i hope you're scared to death of anyone who says that he's come up with something entirely novel well then as we conclude the hour a brief summary of the scope of the course all i ask

49:05 you to do is to look at your abstract and there you will see that the entire course breaks down into six major parts over the course of eight semesters the calling of the man of god to the pastoral office a new organizing principle for some of you who have seen or heard previous lectures it used to be the organizing principle was pastoral preaching over grad s manner of god to the pastoral office benefits with morecom Cortes vegas cardin ryw is the preaching ministry of the man of god the work of oversight by the man of god the intercessory prayer ministry of the man of god and then miscellaneous pastoral concerns and then finally just a word about the way the lectures will be conducted as they have been this morning i'll usually give you your printed sheets and then i will lecture straight through to a convenient breaking point we'll have a break i'll conclude the lecture and then hopefully it's not possible all the time but hopefully before one o'clock we'll even have a few minutes for questions and answers and then for any of you men that are able to stay on and desire to interact with questions

50:31 i'm glad to stay on for another half hour and and do that but i would appreciate it if you have a question that comes up in the midst of the lecture to hold it to the break point and it may be that it's the kind of question that as you give it to me i will judge it good to go back and add it as an addendum as i give the last half of the lecture but for the most part because i try to stick fairly close to my manuscript without being glued to it and have some eye contact with you i do want to be able to carry through the train of thought in the structured lesson but i don't want to squelch legitimate questions that in entertaining them might be of help to all of us as we wrestle with them together well we've got you through it's one o'clock let's pray and thank god for his help and then any that want to remain for any questions you may have to bring out in this group setting we can spend that time together our father we marvel at your holy word even today as we have been privileged to consider a number of passages we thank you for the sufficiency of holy scripture and we pray that by the enablement of your spirit guiding us in our understanding of the word we may in these days to come as you are privileged to spare us and bring us together week by week

51:57 that we may learn of you what it is to be able ministers of the new covenant thank you for our time together today may your benediction rest upon us bless each of the men as they go to their various spheres of responsibility may each of us live before your eye with a conscience void of offense to you and to our fellow men we pray your special comfort to be upon our dear brother mr davies lord we would weep with those who weep and we can only imagine what it must be for him to think that the cousin in whose face into whose face he looked less than a week ago has been torn to pieces in this airplane crash lord comfort your dear servant and use this even for the conversion of the children in his family and other relatives in the extended family minister your grace magnify your power we ask with thankful hearts in jesus name amen and if you have any questions