Years ago, when those “spiritual gift” tests were in vogue, a pastor told he didn’t like them because Christians were using them as an excuse to be slack in the areas where they were not “gifted.”

From what I have seen, spirituals gifts tend to be giftings for definite tasks. Some people are natural pastors, or natural kings (administrators). I’m not, but I have learned a great deal from watching and working with men who are.

Certainly, our gifts differ, and we should delegate what we’re not good at, but our maturity must be well-rounded. I’m more “prophet/teacher,” but that doesn’t mean my ministry doesn’t require gentleness or competent organization.

It’s easy to be harsh on a blog, (I’m much more mild mannered in person!) and everything written here is pointy for good reason. But I’ve found the harshness flows straight out of the way I often “speak” to myself. If my speech is sharp in any way, it should only be because God has broken me first. Judgment surely begins at the house of God, but within the house of God, judgment must begin with the preacher.

This is exactly what we see in Israel’s prophets. Transcendence and Hierarchy always come before Ethics. God’s prophets have tempers, but God’s prophets are tempered. He cuts them into bread and wine. These men of God knew when to be harsh and when to deal gently. Behold the goodness and severity of Jesus.

Here’s the example that got me thinking, an excerpt from Dan Braga on re-planting a church:

The tri-perspectival arena is important for [church] replanters. I have a super dominant personality. That’s the way I lead. I’m a prophet—through the roof. But this is why the Lord called me to re-plant. In many ways I mocked the priestly arena—pastoral ministry. Priests were weak and wimpy. Mercy is something to be sung about. It doesn’t really exist. That was my mentality.

But I’ll tell you that there, in the pastoral realm, the priest, there is the ministry of Jesus. It took four little grandmas to change a young arrogant guy. I had been counseled to take the building, plant the church in it, and just bowl them over. But in my candidate phase, the Lord said to me very clearly, “You will pastor them until they come to be with me.”

In a church re-plant, you cannot back away from any of the three perspectives. In sick churches, you’ve got demonic strongholds, egregious sin, structures and systems that are not only fallible but have actually promoted the failure of the gospel. And it really does take a strong prophet to say, “Look, this is black, this is white. This is what the Bible says. This is the way it is and this is the way we’re going. Throw me into the dungeon. Pin me up on a cross. Strip me down naked and spit on me, I don’t care. This is how it’s going to happen. Float with us or get off the boat. And if you drown, fine. It’s your fault.” It often takes that attitude.

By complementing that you must have a priestly attitude. The prophet just told you to get off the boat. Fine. Follow up on that. “How are you doing out there in the water? Are you ready for a life raft?”

Re-planting A Church, 2010 Phoenix Boot Camp, Acts 29 podcast, 10 Nov, 2010.

Image: www.popartdecoration.com

“But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing…” Matthew 6:3

When it comes to doctrine, Mark Driscoll defines all issues as either closed-handed or open-handed. The non-negotiable fundamentals are held with a closed hand. In the open hand are issues that can be debated without shafting a church’s faithfulness to the apostles’ doctrine.

The Tabernacle was a metal man. In His left hand were bread and wine: servanthood, or more correctly, slavedom. In His right hand were the seven stars of the Lampstand: kingdom. The process of maturity, from obedience to wisdom, from slave to son, is the process of binding and loosing, from closed-handed issues to the open hand of the king. A priest is a silent servant in God’s house, and the details of his obedience are non-negotiable. His is an ear to be bored with an awl. A king is a vassal-son in God’s house, and he is counted as a friend, a courtly advisor. [1] His is a loosed tongue precisely because it has been bridled.

Of course, it takes a king to decide which issues should be held with a closed hand and which with an open one.

The true king is the son of the freewoman who was willing, like Isaac, to be bound as a sacrifice in order to free the generations of the people of God, the Bride. Likewise, Paul, the greatest apostle, was bound with a chain, held in the iron grip of Rome, for the hope of Israel. And the faithfulness of the apostolic church led to the binding of Satan–with a chain.

There is great wisdom in pastors requiring young Christians to focus on the fundamental doctrines, not simply in word but in practice, before allowing them, as qualified rhetors, to enter the debating arena. Doctrinal debates are a privilege of the New Covenant Church, but our motives must be pure. If we wish to speak in kingly courts, we must enter the arena from the place of the bondslave. Adam didn’t. Jesus did. The speech of a broken heart is not bitter but fragrant.

The vows of Church membership are, in this sense, a submission to chains for the sake of the gospel. So often, when tongues are afire, the Word of God is hindered, and when we are chained, the Word is loosed. The principle of intercession, of substitutionary sacrifice, permeates every area of ministry.

And soon enough, the chains might be real ones.

“…and most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.” Philippians 1:14

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[1] See God Chooses His Friends.

The Pharisees’ call for miracles from Jesus was a sign of immaturity. As the story of the patriarchs demonstrates, the growing maturity of the people of God is illustrated in less of a need for proofs. The Word is enough. Miracles are occurring around the world in places where the gospel is new and faith needs assurance. In the West, genuine miracles of this nature seldom occur. Is it due to a lack of faith or a call to greater faith? We have had the Scriptures forever, and the childish desire for (and manufacturing of) miracles, betrays a reversion to childhood.

Abraham was the first patriarch, but both Jacob and Joseph did greater deeds. Jordan observes that neither Abraham nor Jacob could have conquered Egypt the way Joseph did.

Abraham founds the new Garden, planting oak trees (Father). Jacob’s trials concern relatives and brothers (Land – Son). Joseph is plunged into the Gentile Sea, the World. Joseph was most likely the first Spirit-filled man.

“…altars and sacrifices play a large role in the Abraham narrative (Genesis 11:27–25:11), little role in the story of Jacob (25:12–37:1), and no role in the history of Joseph (37:2–50:26). We now observe that in the story of Abraham, God frequently appears to Abraham (12:1-3; 13:14-17; 15:1-21; 17:1-22; 18:1-33; 22:1-19), while God only appears four times to Jacob in the Jacob story (28:10-17; 31:10-13; 32:24-30; 35:10-13), and once later on in the Joseph story (46:1-4). The Abraham narrative reads like an extended life-long dialogue between Abraham and Yahweh, and indeed, there are several actual dialogues between the two. In the Jacob narrative there are no dialogues, and God appears only at three/four crisis points. God does not personally appear at all in the Joseph story. If there is something to be learned from this fact is it this: As we mature, God chooses to recede further into the background of our lives, and leads us by means of His Spirit. This is an aspect of how He brings us to maturity.” [1]

Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed. Unlike Adam, and like Joseph, we become content to obey the Covenant Word and work faithfully—unsupervised. Even in the valley of the shadow of death, we remember what direction we were facing in and we persevere.

You should still expect miracles, but the Word becomes enough as you grow to maturity. You become Word incarnate so that the “hidden God” is not hidden at all. Like Joseph, you are the altar and the sign.

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[1] James B. Jordan, Crisis Time: Patriarchal Prologue, Part 1, BIBLICAL HORIZONS, No. 109.

The Son has promised to meet us two places: in our sin and in our weakness. He will rejoice in our glory, but only if we have first encountered Him in our humility. As sinners, we must meet Him in our sin, and as creatures, as newborn babies, as little children, we must meet Him in our weakness. Good works, maturity, and glory must be the outflow of that encounter, not the basis of it.

RITE REASONS No. 59: The Second Word V: On Images and Art, Part 3 
James B. Jordan  www.biblicalhorizons.com

“All that we see on this earth is symbolic reality, and only as our inward heart is purged from sin can we see the symbolism. That is why when a man is in Christ Jesus he is a new creation, and he sees everything in the common world as symbols—unseeable realities.”

“God guides us stage by stage, and the most marvellous stage of His guidance is by symbols. A symbol represents a spiritual truth by means of images or properties of natural things. A symbol is sealed until the right spirit is given for its understanding, and God’s symbols are undetected unless His Spirit is in His child to enable him to understand. What did the cloudy pillar by day or the fiery pillar by night signify to the hordes in the desert? Nothing more than the mystery of ever-varying cloud forms. To the children of God, they meant the manifested guidance of God. How a man interprets God’s symbols reveals what manner of man he is. How often we have to say with the Psalmist, “I was as a beast before Thee,” i.e., without understanding. How often the ass recognises that one of God’s angels is speaking before the so-called prophet on its back detects it.”

“God shifts His symbols and we know not why; but God is ever only good, and the shifting of one symbol means surely that another symbol is to guide us to a nearer grasp of Himself. When God, so to speak, has left a symbol, it becomes transparent, and has no further binding force. How sad it is under the sun to see men worshipping a symbol which has been abandoned by God. We are not to worship reminiscences; this is the characteristic of all other religions. The Bible religion is one of eternal progress, an intense and militant going on. Obedience to the voice of the Spirit within, the Word of God without and the suffering of tribulation all around, enable the child of God to hear God’s voice and recognise His changing symbols.”

From The Discipline of Divine Guidance by Oswald Chambers

http://www.bullartistry.com.au/pdf_bestill/011BeStill.pdf

Spiritual hunger and thirst are fulfilled in the Lord Jesus, while at the same time they are enlarged for more of Him. This satisfaction overwhelms all lesser longings. Fleshly yearnings are never fulfilled, and every attempt at such satisfaction soon cloys.

“Do we think of, and rejoice in, our blessings more than in the Person in whom we have them? As to even our doctrinal blessings, there is a wonderful charm about them when they are new to us, and they sustain the soul for a certain time; but when the first joy of them passes away, a settling-down process commences. Every new bit of blessing may seem to put a new bit of life into us, but it gradually loses its luster and power, and we become just ordinary Christians–we make very little progress.

“It is as we take the Lord Jesus by faith into the affections of our hearts that we make spiritual progress. It is as He occupies an enlarged place in our affections that we go on. The head may be filled with general theological information without producing one spark of heart-affection for the Lord Jesus, and the soul remains in a state of spiritual emaciation.”

“Many have been misled by thinking that by reading the Bible you become like Christ–transformed; but you will find diligent students of the Word, who may never say anything incorrect in doctrine, yet who never seem to grow in grace and walk in spiritual reality.”

“All blessings of this dispensation of grace are wrapped up in a Person, and, by means of the Word of God, we make spiritual progress as our hearts learn to find everything in Him–the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us.”

“He satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness” (Psalm 107:9).

from None But The Hungry Heart, compiled by Miles J. Stanford
www.withchrist.org