Romans 12:1-8
In a Call to the Ministry
Martin argues that a Christ-authorized, church-based theology and practice of ministerial recognition, training, and ordination is the third plain manifestation of the church's unique place in God's saving purposes. He establishes from Scripture that three agents are involved in the preliminary recognition of a potential minister: the man himself through sober self-assessment (Romans 12:3), the mature people of God as a body of wise counsel (Proverbs 11:14; 15:22; 18:1), and the formal encouragement of the church through its appointed leadership (Acts 1; Acts 6; Acts 16). Martin then contends that general ministerial training belongs primarily within the life of a biblical local church, illustrated by Timothy's formation in the churches where Paul labored, and that even specialized theological training should be conducted within a church context rather than in freestanding institutions. He closes by quoting Samuel Miller's 19th-century Presbyterian argument that quality of ministry matters far more than quantity, and affirms the church's central, paramount, and final role in formal ordination.
Primary Texts
Topics
Outline 12 sections · 55 min
- Introduction: Truth, Error, and the Manifesto Context 0:00
- Review of Previous Plain Manifestations 2:26
- The Third Plain Manifestation Stated 5:04
- The Importance of Leadership Quality: Biblical and Historical Evidence 5:28
- God's Promise and Three Burning Questions 9:17
- First Agent in Preliminary Recognition: The Man Himself 13:55
- Second Agent: The Mature People of God as a Body of Wise Counsel 24:51
- Third Agent: The Formal Encouragement of the Church Through Appointed Leadership 29:17
- Practical Application and Quality Over Quantity 35:10
- Agents in General Training: The Biblical Church as Primary School 42:32
- Agents in Specialized Training: Church-Based Theological Education 48:28
- Ordination and Closing Appeal 54:21
Key Quotes
“Error always loves the dark, the misty, and the nebulous.”
“few things are more crucial to the well-being of God's people than the quality of its spiritual leaders”
“pride consists in coveting or exercising a prerogative that does not belong to us”
“he that separates himself seeks his own desire and rages against all sound wisdom”
“we would rather be giving our life's blood to training five positions of souls than 50 quacks and God will do more with those five than with”
“the church's function is central the church's function is paramount and the church's function and decision is final”
“may God grant that these things will become visceral intelligent convictions for which you are willing to pay a price”
Applications
All listeners
- Churches must take the quality of their spiritual leadership with the utmost seriousness, recognizing from biblical history that godly leaders produce seasons of blessing and ungodly leaders produce tragedy for God's people.
- A man sensing a call to ministry must shut himself up with God and his Bible to undergo sober, honest self-assessment -- evaluating actual gifts and graces rather than nursing pride or false humility.
- Unmortified pride and carnal ambition will blind a man's judgment about his calling; these must be identified and mortified before reliable self-assessment is possible. Both overestimating and underestimating one's gifts are sins.
- A man exploring a call to ministry should seek out spiritually mature, Spirit-filled members of the congregation -- those with the oil on their forehead -- and ask them with judgment-day honesty whether they see the marks of God's hand on him.
- A man who has already made up his mind about his calling and refuses to seek or heed counsel from the body of Christ demonstrates pride and rages against sound wisdom -- his ministry, if pursued, is likely to be a blight rather than a blessing.
- After self-assessment and congregational counsel, a man must submit his conclusions to his elders and put his sense of call to the test of the objective standards of God's word. Subjective impressions -- however vivid -- carry no weight on their own.
- The primary school of general ministerial formation is thorough, long-term involvement in the life of a biblical local church -- its preaching, prayer, discipline, benevolence, and body life. Men who bypass this cannot recognize a healthy church or serve one effectively.
- A pastor dealing with ministers trained in institutions disconnected from the local church should counsel them to plant themselves in a living, biblical church where they will learn more in one year than in decades of academic study without it.
- Even specialized theological training -- biblical languages, church history, systematic and pastoral theology -- should be acquired primarily within the context of a local church, not in a freestanding seminary divorced from ecclesial accountability.
- Every member of the congregation should hold convictions about the church's unique role in ministerial recognition, training, and ordination as visceral, costly commitments -- not merely intellectual positions -- as secular and parachurch alternatives multiply.
A full transcript is available on the tab. 52 paragraphs, roughly 55 minutes.
Introduction: Truth, Error, and the Manifesto Context
Error always loves the dark, the misty, and the nebulous.
Error delights to lurk in dark, verbal shadows.
On the other hand, truth is most at home in the light, in the clear and unclouded atmosphere of transparent honesty. The noonday sunlight of clear, unambiguous statement is always that with which truth has a powerful affinity. And as those who love the truth of God's Word, we are seeking in this present series of messages to bring into sharp focus and to put under intense, direct light the light of truth. The light of unambiguous statement, those things which lie at the heart of who we are as a church and what we are committed to be and to do by the grace of God. This present series of sermons is entitled A Manifesto of Trinity Baptist Church. And we are presently considering the fourth major affirmation in that manifesto, if you desire to know what the others were, I'm not going to review them. They're available from the tape library.
But we are presently focusing upon the fourth major affirmation of this manifesto, and it is this. We as a church are determined that our life and ministry will unquestionably confirm the unique place assigned to the church in the saving purposes of God. In opening up this affirmation, I first of all set before you a working definition of the word church. And then I gave a demonstration of the unique place assigned to the church in the saving purposes of God.
Review of Previous Plain Manifestations
We are now in the third place, examining what I'm calling the plain manifestations of the church. Of this determination that our life and ministry will confirm the unique place assigned to the church in God's purposes. The first plain manifestation is found in our theology and practice of the Christian life. And from the scriptures we saw that that theology and practice is Christ-centered and church-based.
And according to the New Testament, we are to be a church of God. We are to be a church of God. We are to be a church of God. In the New Testament, those two things are never to be severed.
A theology and practice of the Christian life that is not Christ-centered is not biblical. A theology and practice of the Christian life that is not church-based is not biblical. The theology and practice of the Christian life in the New Testament is at one and the same time Christ-centered and church-based. And though we fall far short of the biblical ideal, it is that unequivocal framework by which we seriously attempt to shape and mold our life together.
The second plain manifestation of our commitment to this concept, to this principle, is found in our theology and practice of evangelism and missions. And once again, we turn to the scriptures and saw that in the New Testament, the theology and practice of evangelism and missions was again Christ-centered and church-based. And then I tried to give you the manifestations, again, poorly attained. We have not yet come to the biblical standard, but that we are nonetheless honestly seeking to press towards it that in the New Testament, we are to be a church of God.
That in our life together, we seek to have a pattern and practice of evangelism and missions that is Christ-centered and church-based. Now today, we take up the third plain manifestation of our determination that our life and ministry will confirm the unique place assigned to the church and the saving purposes of God. And what is it? Well, let me state it.
The Third Plain Manifestation Stated
It is the salvation of the church. It is the salvation of the church. It is the salvation of the church. It is the salvation of the church.
It is the salvation of the church. It is the salvation of the church. Simply, at the outset, and then we'll begin to unpack it. It is our effort to function with a Christ-authorized, church-based theology and practice of ministerial recognition, specialized training, and formal ordination.
The Importance of Leadership Quality: Biblical and Historical Evidence
Our effort to function with a Christ-authorized, church-based, theology and practice of ministerial recognition, specialized training, and formal ordination is indeed a plain manifestation of our conviction of the unique place given to the church in the purpose of God. Now as we take up this vital issue, let me remind you by way of introduction that according to the scriptures, and it is vividly enforced in the history of the church, it is a fact that few things are more crucial to the well-being of God's people than the quality of its spiritual leaders. When the spiritual leaders are marked by vital godliness, spiritual wisdom, competence of gift, and moral courage, it will usually result in a period of blessing for the people of God. However, when spiritual leaders are ungodly in character, ignorant of spiritual realities, incompetent in gift, and cowardly in terms of their own spirits,
tragedy almost always comes to those who are cursed by their leadership. These principles are stamped on the board of the church. On the very face of large sections of Holy Scripture. Take the book of Judges.
One can plot the history of the nation of Israel under the period of the Judges by the good and the evil Judges. And when God would bless His people, He would raise up a man of spiritual stature, of wisdom, of gift, and of courage. And when God would curse a people, He would leave them at the mercy of ungodly, unwise, incompetent, and cowardly men. Read through the books of 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles, and the same thing is true with reference to the kings of Israel.
Read through the prophets, and you see the constant conflict between false prophets who were to be found by the handfuls, while true prophets, prophets were found in the minority. And whole chapters are given over to divine nation upon these false shepherds, whether they are shepherds in the prophetic or in the kingly sense. Ezekiel 34, Jeremiah 23. These chapters demonstrate the principle that I've articulated that leadership among the people of God is crucial, to the well-being of those people.
And perhaps nothing highlights the principle more vividly in a negative way than the condemnation of our Lord upon the recognized spiritual leaders in Israel at the time of our Lord. Matthew 23, the scathing indictment upon the leadership both produced by the nation of Israel at that time is perhaps the worst commentary on the spiritual state of the nation itself.
God's Promise and Three Burning Questions
Therefore, it should not surprise us that in predicting the better and more glorious blessings of God under the new covenant, one such promised blessing should be that spoken of by Jeremiah the prophet in Jeremiah 3 and verse 15. Here God promises that under the better days, of that better covenant, this is what God will do. Jeremiah 3.15 And I will give you shepherds according to my heart who shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
And then the prophet goes on to describe under old covenant imagery the blessings that will flow to the new covenant community under the spiritual guidance of shepherds according to God's who feed God's people with knowledge and with understanding. And according to Ephesians chapter 4 verses 10 and following, it is none other than the Lord Jesus himself who fulfills this promise under the new covenant. The ascended Christ gives gifts and among those gifts are the saints standing office usefulness of pastors and teachers given for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of service. But if Jeremiah 3.15 is true and Ephesians 4.11 is being fulfilled, we cannot escape if we're thinking at all three burning questions.
Question number one. Who is those whom Christ is making into shepherds after his own heart who shall feed his flock with knowledge and with understanding? Who is authorized to recognize those whom Christ is preparing as a gift to his church? Second question.
Who is to impart the general instruction or any concentrated special training which such men may need if they are not to feed the flock with knowledge and understanding? That's a different question. Who is authorized to recognize those shepherds when the Lord is forming them into his gift? Who is to impart general instruction and where necessary concentrated specialized instruction if they are to be Christ's gifts who feed with knowledge and with understanding?
And question number three. Who is authorized formally and officially to confer the office and authority upon those whom Christ has prepared and is now actually giving to specific churches as pastors and teachers? Who is authorized to recognize them and to say no longer reason to believe a gift of Christ but to say we have reason to believe you are a gift given by Christ to the church? Well, our answer to each of these questions is that the church functioning according to the word of God is both competent in the strength and wisdom of the Spirit to bear a full of recognition preparation and the ordination of the true shepherds of God's people. That is our understanding of the word of God. That is the commitment of our heart. That is a strand of a plain station of our connection of the uniqueness of the church in the saving purpose of God.
First Agent in Preliminary Recognition: The Man Himself
It has to do not only in practice of the Christian life which is Christ-centered and church-based or theology and practice of evangelism and missions which is Christ-centered and church-based but our theology and practice of ministerial recognition preparation and ordination which is Christ-authorized and church-based We turn to the word of God to see if indeed this is so. And we're going to look then first of all at that which will answer the first question. The agents involved in the preliminary recognition of a man as a potential gift of Christ to his church as a shepherd after God's own heart. What agents are involved in the preliminary recognition of a man as a potential gift of Christ to his church as a shepherd after God's own heart? While the Lord fulfills his promise to give shepherds after his own heart he does not mark them out and send them to us like a birthday gift with a tag on them.
Here is a shepherd who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. Nor does he send an angel down from heaven with a white hot branding iron with the letters G period O period D period and sear the forehead of those whom he has marked out gift of Christ. So we go around looking at foreheads and say oh there's one there's one there's one. He doesn't do it that way.
What are the those men who are potential gifts of Christ to his church while fully acknowledging that in the case of each man called given by Christ to the church there will be factors that are unique personal and non-repeatable yet there are certain things clearly authorized by Christ the head of the church which lead to the preliminary and tentative judgment that he may indeed be a gift of Christ to the church. And those agents are the man himself the mature people of God as a body of wise counsel and thirdly what I have called the formal encouragement of the church through its appointed leadership. Now those are the agents according to the scriptures that are involved in the church involved in the preliminary recognition of one whom Christ is making into an able minister of the new covenant. First of all there is the man himself. Please turn to Romans chapter 12.
There is the man himself.
Now remember this book that we call Romans was written to a church and therefore the assumption is everyone who heard it read was a church member and whatever he was called upon to do he was called upon to do in the context and life of the church. And after giving a general call to general sanctification that applies to all of God's people regardless of their specific calling in life or position in the church he then says in verse 3 of Romans 12 for I say through the grace that was given me to every man that is among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but so to think as to think soberly according as God hath dealt to each man a measure of faith for even as we have many members in one body and all the members have not the same office so we who are many are one body in Christ and severally members one of another and having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us. In this particular section of the epistle the apostle by the inspiration of the spirit called every individual within the collective body to undergo a process of sober assessment
and that sober self-assessment in the context has peculiar reference to the assessment of divine gift for we read on about the gifts that differ according to the grace given to us and then some of those gifts are listed so that the first agent in ascertaining whether or not the head of the church is making a man into a shepherd after his own heart who will feed his people with knowledge and understanding is the sanctified man himself the man of one in of his heart Roman and two are this call in response to God's mercy utterly to abandon ourselves to the Lord himself with a not but the good acceptable and perfect will of God you see verses 3 and following whom a man can sing
hymn number 444 little place if thou be glorified all have been best love for Christ sweet disposition will make a man a minister all that's been dealt with Romans 12 1 and 2 and now a man disposition that's prepared to prove in his experience the good and acceptable and perfect will of God whatever it is seeks to undergo in the solemn presence of God evaluation Professor Murray's comments on this passage are most perceptive why does the apostle say to think soberly be in touch with reality he says one of the ways in which the design contemplated by the apostle is frustrated is by the sin of pride and how I've meditated on this next sentence pride consists
in coveting or exercising a prerogative that does not belong to us what is pride pride consists in coveting or exercising a prerogative that does not the devil of the most high I worry that them belong to me what is not given to me as a creature it was pride that entered into the sin of our first parents ye shall be as God's knowing you'll have something that doesn't belong to you an experimental knowledge of good and evil you'll have something and so it was pride that led to the fall of our first parents the negative is here again to be noted in the liability to indulgence is marked by the necessity of directing the exhortation to all I say to everyone that is among you no one is immune to exaggerated self-esteem and then Murray quotes a commentator he therefore who covets a higher or another standpoint in sphere of activity in the community and is not contented with that which corresponds to the measure of faith bestowed on him
evidence is a willful self-exaltation which is without measure and is not of God
and he goes on to say but to think soberly means we do not think less if we consider ourselves to possess gifts we don't have then we have an inflated notion of our place and function we sin by esteeming ourselves beyond what we are but if we underestimate then we're refusing to acknowledge God's grace and we fail to exercise that which God has dispensed for our own sanctification and that of others the positive injunction is the reproof of a false humility which equally with over self-esteem fails to assess the grace of God and the calling which distinguishing distribution of grace assigns to each and then nobody can do this for you every man must shut himself up with God in his Bible praying that all unmortified pride that will blind his judgment unmortified ambition and the ambition that will cloud his spiritual eyesight may be unable to do what this passage says not to think more highly than he ought to think but to think soberly and to make an assessment as to whether or not there are some indications that the head of the church may be furnishing me with the necessary gifts and graces to be a shepherd
Second Agent: The Mature People of God as a Body of Wise Counsel
after his own heart but then the other agent involved in that preliminary recognition or the second agent is the mature people of God as a body of wise counsel you see in a well ordered church people are praying for God to raise up and send forth laborers Matthew 9 and verse 37 pray therefore the Lord of the harvest that he send forth laborers and it's interesting whenever something begins to become a burden of prayer your spiritual feelings feelers go out in that area and if you're praying Lord raise up man then your eyes are looking could it be God's answering prayer in our vicinity and we must never despise the help that comes from the mature people of God as a body of wise counsel listen to the familiar words from the book of Proverbs Proverbs 11 in verse 14 Proverbs 11 in verse 14 where no wise guidance is the people fall but in the multitude of counselors there is safety God's given a safety net to my own individual judgment it's not the counselors who may either be filled with an overweening desire to curry my favor and tell me what I want to hear or those who may have something against me and will not
be objective but it's in a multitude of counselors who are those who have an earned reputation for spiritual grace and wisdom and the maturity that only years brings when people walk with God in the multitude of such counselors their safety not in the multitude of any kind of counselors remember the king who sought out the wise mature counselors and he didn't like what they said he was looking for confirmation not counsel so he got his young buddies and they agreed with him and he said ah I'll do what they say they got the wisdom and I've no men itching for the ministry to go around and get their own buddies their own age to say oh well yes sir he's got it he's got it they wouldn't dare go to God's older seasoned people because they'd all say no way Jose so when the Bible says multitude of counselors that's not an unqualified multitude it better be counselors as A.W. Tozer said whenever I take counsel from a man I look for the oil on his forehead if he's got the oil on his forehead that is the mark of a man's living in the spirit talking with God then I'll listen to his counsel no oil on his forehead nicks on his counsel Proverbs 15.22 where there is no counsel purposes are disappointed but but in the multitude of counselors
they are established where there is no counsel purposes are disappointed I have a purpose to make sober self-assessment but I'm conscious God's place me in a body of his people who are a praying people who have discernment as to what the marks are of one upon whom God has his hand and I want to know if they see those marks in me and so I avail myself of this multitude of counselors that purposes may be established but then look at Proverbs 18.1 here's the man he's so sure he's got a direct line between him and heaven he can make such accurate self-assessment why he doesn't need to ask anybody else look what God says about him he that separates himself seeks his own desire and rages against all sound wisdom in other words he's made his mind up and he doesn't want to be confused by the facts that might come if he sought counsel I tell you I've seen men like this in the ministry by the carloads they've got a pipeline to heaven the problem is their ministries are a blight and a curse on earth because they've separated themselves seeking their own desire and they rage against all the sound wisdom that they'd hear if they sought the counsel of wise men and women in the body
Third Agent: The Formal Encouragement of the Church Through Appointed Leadership
of Christ but then the third agent now this is just the preliminary recognition of a man as a potential gift of Christ to his church the first agent is the man himself secondly the mature people of God as a body of wise counsel thirdly the formal encouragement of the church through its appointed leadership the formal encouragement of the church through its appointed leadership from the first instance in the New Testament church of seeking out office bearers this principle stands out very vividly you remember Acts chapter 1 when they were looking for a replacement for Judas what happened Peter stood up quoted the scriptures that warranted this seeking of a replacement and men who met the qualifications were put forward and then they cast lots and one of them was chosen but you see the principle here was the formal encouragement of the church through its existing leadership you didn't have Matthias jump up and say hey fellas I believe I'm the one look at me oh no here were the requirements laid out those that have accompanied with us from the baptism of John right on we need to have another who will be witness of the resurrection
therefore those that fit that description let's narrow them down who are they they narrowed them down to two and then there was the casting of the lots and the recognition of the one same thing in Acts chapter 6 it was the apostles who were the spiritual leaders of the church in Jerusalem who recognized this problem of the inequities of serving the tables of the widows and they said look we must come up with a holy expedient it's not fit for us to leave the word of God and serve tables therefore they said you people look out among you then they gave the standard and then when they sought out these people they brought them before the apostles and then what happened the apostles recognized the wisdom of their choice and we read in Acts chapter 6 in this saying please the whole multitude verse 5 and they chose and then the men are listed verse 6 whom they will they set before the apostles and when they had prayed they laid their hands upon them what is this but the same principle the formal encouragement of the church through its appointed leadership and all the way through to 2nd Timothy 2 to the things that you have heard of me among many witnesses the same commit to faithful men Timothy you're in a place of leadership if anyone comes forward saying he believes that he's being made into a gift of Christ you must exercise
judgment in conjunction with the consensus of the people of God is this a faithful man who will be competent to teach judgments are to be made does not claim or promise that we shall have infallibility in those judgments there are many encouragements to believe that he will keep us from repeatedly and wickedly erring again and again if we will use the means of his appointment and one other pivotal passage that I had overlooked in previous studies of this subject is Acts chapter 16 where young Timothy some want to put him in his teens at this point but most likely he was in his early twenties Acts chapter 16 and speaking of Paul he came to Derby and to Lystra and behold a certain disciple was there named Timothy the son of a Jewish that believed his father was a Greek the same was well reported of by the brethren him would Paul have to go forth with him you see what you had you had a grass roots consensus among the brethren that the head of the church had his hand upon Timothy you didn't have Timothy going around trying to persuade people I'm called
his life his gifts his graces had gone before him so when Paul came everywhere he went in those churches Timothy's name cropped up cropped up cropped up cropped up no doubt after some hours of sitting with him and picking his brain and probing his life and examining him Paul came to the conviction yes everything I've heard is true and probably a lot more I'm going to take him along and put him under my wing and I'm going to make him as it were my spiritual son and he nurtures him and later on entrusts tremendous responsibilities to him but you see the great principle that the agent in recognizing the potential gift of Christ was not just the man himself not just the counsel of the godly but the formal encouragement of the church through its appointed leadership now do you understand why we operate the way we do with reference to men being encouraged to pursue the work of the ministry in this place we do not come apart at the seams as a group of elders when a young man comes saying I felt the flutter it was in my right ventricle 3.33 in the morning
Practical Application and Quality Over Quantity
and as I put my hand on my heart I realized it was Morse code and when I wrote it down and I deciphered it it said George go preach the gospel we don't fall on our knees and say hallelujah God's called him God's called him no they don't work that way Morse code or not why because there's no warrant for that in the word of God no way tell the fellow maybe you got the same kind of problem the president does go have your thyroid checked and get some medicine get your fibrillation checked out and then go home and take Romans 12 and start doing some sober self-assessment as to whether or not the head of the church is giving you those graces of Christian character and those gifts essential to the work engage in a period of serious intense self-evaluation and seek out the brothers and sisters with the oil on the forehead around this place and ask them with judgment day honesty do they see in you those things which when they prayed Lord send forth labors have ever caused them to say Lord I think it may be George Lord put your hand on me hand on George go ask them and be prepared to listen to them even though what they say may not encourage you
and then be prepared to come with your conclusions and sit down before your own elders and put your fibrillations to the test of the objective standards of the word of God someone says pastor you aren't going to have many people going into ministry that way and don't we need a lot more ministers than we have well that objection was raised back in the days of Samuel Miller Samuel Miller was calling for a higher standard of admission into the work of the ministry and people said to Miller but if you do that why you're just not going to have enough ministers and listen to Miller's answer a Presbyterian living back in the mid 1800's in 1834 Miller estimated the Presbyterian church was in need of more than a thousand ministers in order to fill vacant congregations and begin mission churches yet Miller was convinced that the quality of the ministry was more critical than the mere quantity of ministers and to emphasize the point Miller offered the following illustration and observations now this is Miller writing suppose a population of 10,000 families to be laboring under a contagious and mortal disease would it be better to send among them half a dozen wise and skillful physicians
or 50 or even a hundred miserable people quacks who would be more likely to kill more than they would cure there's this question surely no thinking man can hesitate a moment about the proper answer the truth is there are unqualified men enough in the ministry other denominations are furnishing them in abundantly sufficient numbers the task seems to be incumbent on us under God to train up for the service of the church ministers of a more mature scriptural and elevated character and if the proper qualifications are not insisted on and provided for by our church if the great mass of those sent out by us are not able as well as pious and faithful ministers of the new testament I know of no denomination of Christians likely to supply the deficiency end quote and brethren while we would rejoice if there were right now 50 men that had all the marks of being potential gifts of Christ to his church we would rejoice but we would rather be giving our life's blood to training five positions of souls than 50 quacks and God will do more with those five than with
500 for my bible says one shall chase a thousand and two shall put ten thousand to flight and you guys that like to play with numbers in your computers work with that up to the number 10 one puts a thousand to flight ten thousand to flight what do you got by the time you get up to ten that's our God for it is not with the Lord to save by many or by few but he does save by those whom he puts into his service well that's what we're committed to you say you know that's easy to talk about yeah you believe the church is unique what's the proof of it well here it is here's the plain manifestation of it our commitment that in this matter of the recognition of those whom Christ may be forming into able ministers of the new covenant we are determined that the church shall have its proper place a man whose life is embedded in the church who is fulfilling his proper duties as an ordinary churchman seeking to be a holy man proving the good acceptable and perfect will of God he then undergoes sober self-assessment he then is willing to submit himself to the body
of the wise council existing in a mature church and he is willing to submit himself to the judgment and the official recognition or non-recognition of his elders and the congregation but then I hasten and less extensively to take up in the second place the agents involved in the generalization and specialized training of these potential gifts of Christ the agents involved in the general and specialized training of these potential gifts of Christ to his church well the general training is to be imparted by thorough involvement in the life of a biblical church as God's primary agent of training for the ministry that's so clear from the New Testament I wonder how we could miss it according to 1st Timothy 3 5th chapter 15 the church and in the context it's the church functioning with elders and deacons and men and women in rightful places and caring for her widows and disciplining the unruly and praying for the spread of the gospel and dealing with heresy the whole book of 1st Timothy Paul says I write these things hoping to come to you shortly but if I tarry long that men may know how they ought to behave themselves in the church of the living God which is the pillar and the pillar and the ground of the truth where then is a man's general
Agents in General Training: The Biblical Church as Primary School
spiritual knowledge to come from in preparation for the ministry it is to come by being a vital integral of a living preaching in prayer in congregational meetings where office bearers recognize biblically where sinning saints after due admonition are disciplined biblically where the church suffers when one suffers where the church rejoices where there's real benevolence where there's real mutual biblical body life one of the most pathetic things is when I try to give counsel to men in the ministry about church matters who've never been in a church they've never been part of mothers if you've never seen a baby you went into the labor room and you gave birth to something you held up and said what is this is this a proper baby if you'd never seen one you wouldn't know that you had some kind of a tragic genetic abnormality and I don't say this to be funny it's grievous if it was born with one eye in the middle of its head two ears on this side three on this side one leg you wouldn't know
when you held a baby and you know what a normal baby's like and after the birth pangs and the mucus has been extracted and the baby's plumped on your breast and you look down and you count its fingers and you look at its nose and you say thank you God for a normal healthy baby you know what one is think of the men in the ministry they've never seen a church never been part of a church why they got converted they showed the normal fruits of conversion they loved God read their Bibles and witnessed someone said you're called to the ministry so they shipped them off to Bible school where there was no real church and then they did well in Bible school and they said you ought to go to seminary so they went to seminary never were part of a church being taught preparation for the ministry by men who themselves many of whom couldn't preach them way out of a paper bag if their life depended on it who've never spent an hour agonizing with someone in the study who's not sure whether or not he or she is saved who've never spent an hour with the person who feels they can never have assurance of salvation because of some dark chapter in their past that they cannot forget know nothing of the struggles of the soul know nothing of the agonies of applied truth now they're in the real ministry and they call and they say how do I deal with this
how do I deal with this and there are times they say brother my counsel to you is quit the ministry put yourself down in a living viable church I never say perfect church there ain't one the minute they came it'd be imperfect I say find a church that's seeking to conduct its life biblically seeking to conduct its life by the word of God and you'll learn more than you'll learn in 30 years using up all my time and somebody else is on the telephone that's the place where the general acquisition of the knowledge of the work of the ministry is acquired where did Timothy get it he was well reported of by the brethren in the churches apparently they saw the potential in this man and said well maybe there's some dimensions of church life over in this church because it was two churches that are spoken on and maybe they said you know there's something he can get over there he couldn't get here so they broadened his exposure but it was in the churches in the churches in the churches therefore when Paul writes as he does in 1 Corinthians 4 17 he's absolutely confident that when he sends Timothy Timothy says will put you in remembrance of my ways which are in Christ even as I teach everywhere in every church where did Timothy learn these things in the churches in the churches in the churches where Paul
was laboring in the churches well the central training is to be imparted by a thorough involvement in the life of a biblical church but then secondly the specialized training where needed is to be acquired in the context of the church hear me carefully now as its primary agent I didn't say necessarily its exclusive agent but primarily for the context of the church as its primary agent and that's you say well why do you need specialized training at all well let me use an illustration here's a guy that buys a a home computer he gets himself a smaller computer and he gets fascinated with it works it up to its capacity and then begins to wonder well you know I've got such facility and capacity in this I think I'd like to go into this field and support my family well he could go around pick up a little knowledge here a little knowledge there but generally speaking what he's going to do if he's going to become a systems analyst or a technician he'll go off to school for six months or a year of concentrated specialized training in order to overlay his general acquisition of computer knowledge with the specialized knowledge needed to be a specialist in that field now that's what we're talking about with regard to preparation for the ministry the church is the school of the general acquisition of a knowledge
Agents in Specialized Training: Church-Based Theological Education
of what worship is of what church life is of what preaching is of what pastor flock interaction is as a man observes and is a part of it he's learning acquiring and then as it begins to be more and more evident through the agency of his own sober self-evaluation the body of the council of God's people the encouragement of his elders that the hand of God is upon him and that he may well be fashioned by Christ into an able minister he says but look if I'm going to be what 2 Timothy 2.15 says I must be a workman who needs not to be ashamed handling aright the word of truth I've got to have some grasp upon the biblical languages that will help me decode the message as God gave it I've got to have some sense of the historical sweep of God's dealings through the history of the church that I'll be able to recognize ancient errors dressed up in new clothing and new makeup I'm going to have to have a grasp upon the great themes of the word of God as they unfold and gather momentum and come to their full fruition in Christ and in the new covenant I've got to have some understanding of the languages of historical theology of biblical theology I've got to make sure that I see not just a part here and a part there I want to see all the parts in their beautiful whole that's systematic theology and I want to have some concentrated
instruction on how you go from the knowledge of these things to their outworking in all the facets of the work of the ministry from your personal life to your family life to constructing sermons that's pastoral theology when God said to Timothy through Paul 2nd Timothy 2 to the things which you have heard of me among many witnesses the same commit to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also who's Timothy he wasn't some freelance acmedition floating around the churches holding concentrated seminars for would-be preachers he was Paul's representative of the church in Ephesus fulfilling all the pastor and still having time to mark out faithful men and commit the body of apostolic truth to them he was himself a man up to his ears in the ministry functioning in the context of the local church and therefore we are convinced that though there may be an allowable expedient to send a man off to a non-church framework for the acquisition of certain skills that ordinarily we ought to have compelling reasons to take a man out of the pillar end of the truth for his most concentrated period of indoctrination in the truth
that doesn't quite make sense to me that's like saying train a man in medicine but make sure you take him out of a hospital in the hospital where do doctors do their residency out on the farm watching a veterinarian once in a while cut a cow's belly open you see my point the church is the pillar and ground of the truth and therefore the concentrated disciplines ordinarily essential for a man to be a shepherd who will feed God's people with knowledge and understanding need to be acquired in that concentrated way but if ever ever the church should have its proper place it's during that time so that as these disciplines are taught a man can say ah I see where that discipline fit into the sermon now I see in that situation in the congregational meeting that element of pastoral theology oh I see when that passage was being expounded I see why pastor so and so didn't come up with what the verse on the surface seems to say because that would have contradicted the total witness of scripture that would have been to overturn systematic theology by a novel interpretation ah I see the importance and all those things are going on and this is why we will not ship people off to man made institutions
we say again with Samuel Miller this is nothing novel listen to Miller I'm perfectly persuaded it may be laid down as an unqualified rule that no voluntary association ought ever to be countenanced which enables men who have no responsibility to the church to interfere with or to govern her affairs well my time is gone we'll just have to leave the third element the agents involved in the formal recognition and ordination of a man as a gift of Christ to his church suffice it to say that in this case as well the church's function is central the church's function is paramount and the church's function and decision is final and though I don't have time to open up the passages that's a distillation of what I would have given you had I the time but I'm not but dear people do you see now why when we say in our manifesto we are determined we are determined that our life and practice as a church will unquestionably validate the uniqueness of the church and the purpose of God it's not only true in our theology and practice of the Christian life our theology and practice of evangelism in missions but it's true as well
Ordination and Closing Appeal
in our theology and practice of missions of ministerial recognition preparation and ordination may God grant that these things will become visceral intelligent convictions for which you are willing to pay a price as everybody and everything thinks it can do the work that God has assigned to his church let us pray
This transcript was generated by automated speech recognition and may contain errors. It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
The foundation of sober self-assessment as the first agent in recognizing a potential minister, requiring consecration and honest evaluation of God-given gifts.
God's covenantal promise of shepherds after his own heart, fulfilled by the ascended Christ through Ephesians 4, which frames the three burning questions the sermon answers.
The church as pillar and ground of the truth, the primary argument for church-based ministerial training over freestanding theological institutions.
Texts Expounded
Also Referenced
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If this spoke to you, hear also…
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Providential Opportunity, Proper Recognition
Acts 1:15-26
layers Pastoral Theology (academy lectures)
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