Timothy Paul Jones

Leadership, Family Ministry, Apologetics

Timothy Paul Jones

Leadership: A Disposition toward Submission

This post on suffering and submission in leadership was written with Michael Wilder and is excerpted from our book The God Who Goes Before You: Pastoral Leadership as Christ-Centered Followership. You can order the book here.

After a meal with his disciples in the upper room, Jesus made his way to a familiar place (John 18:2) on the western face of the Mount of Olives. His intention was to spend time in prayer. Jesus chose to spend his final hours before facing the cross in fellowship with his Father. Jesus was “distressed”—”horrified,” “dismayed,” even “terrified”—as he approached this moment (Mark 14:33). “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death,” he said to his disciples. “Remain here, and watch with me” (Matthew 27:38).

Jesus, the Suffering and Submitted Shepherd

It was not death itself that troubled Jesus. What seems to have troubled him was the forsakenness he would experience as he suffered and died. His eternal fellowship with the Father would be torn for a time as the Son endured infinite forsakenness and wrath. It was only in connection with this suffering that the Gospel writers described Jesus as sorrowful in his soul (Matthew 27:38; John 12:27). Jesus was distressed because God the Father was about to make “him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). The weight of the world’s sin would be upon him, and the Father would unleash his righteous rage against the sin of the world.
Jesus invited the future leaders of his church to be part of these final moments with his Father before the cross: “Remain here, and watch with me” (Matthew 26:38). Then, “going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will’” (Matthew 26:39). Notice both the posture and the content of his prayer. Falling on his face, Jesus took the lowliest possible posture. In so doing, he acknowledged the Father’s authority and expressed his own submission. Only in this context in all of Scripture are we told that Jesus prostrated himself in prayer.

Jesus and the Disposition toward Submission

Jesus began his prayer with the words “my Father,” expressing the intimacy of his relationship with his heavenly Father. “If it be possible,” he said, “let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39). Then, he expressed a truth that must be central in every Christian leader’s vocabulary: “nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” In his second and third prayers, Jesus more explicitly acknowledged that the cross was indeed his Father’s will. He recognized the pain but still submitted to the plan.
Imagine this garden scene as it is played out. Jesus has predicted his death and Peter’s denial, then he proceeds with a troubled soul to a familiar place with three of his closest friends. He invites them to pray as well, then he lays flat with his face buried in the dirt and begins to speak: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. … My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done” (Matthew 26:39).

The lessons learned in that garden that night for the disciples must have been priceless. They saw their dear friend, Savior, and Lord in agony, yet they also saw him submitting willfully to his Father’s will for his Father’s glory. They learned that day what it means to follow God and to lead his people. They learned that followership requires submission to the Father’s will. The disciples glimpsed in Christ a disposition toward submission. Jesus was present among his people as their brother, submitting alongside them to the same Father (Hebrews 2:11).

Strong Leadership and Humble Submission Are Not a Contradiction

But the lessons the disciples learned ran deeper than this disposition toward submission.

They also saw the stark contrast between Simon Peter’s arrogant assertions of strength (Matthew 26:34-35) and their Savior’s admission of his frailty. The pleas of Jesus that night were real, and filled with emotion. Jesus did not hide his troubled spirit from his closest followers. Instead, he invited them to join him. This scene in the garden challenges leaders in the church today to consider their disposition toward submission, their willingness to be honest about their frailty, and their deep need for strength not only from God himself but also from God’s people.

Think About Leadership:
Jesus was a strong leader who lived with a disposition toward submission. Why do we so rarely think of “leadership” and “submission” together today? In what specific ways should a leader be “the lead submitter”?

Leadership: Prophets, Priests, and Kings in the Church Today?

This post on prophets, priests, and kings as leadership typology is excerpted from my book The God Who Goes Before You. You can purchase the book here.

Does my personality as a leader land me in the category of prophet, priest, or king? And, if it does, what does that mean for my leadership in the church? I first encountered these questions several years ago while assessing potential church planters. Over the years that have followed, I’ve become convinced that these questions are grounded in a fundamentally flawed understanding of leadership and of the biblical categories of prophet, priest, and king.

“I’m not really preparing to do pastoral care,” one potential church planter informed me when I asked him about his approach to counseling, “I’m more a king than a priest, you know. So someone else will need to do the counseling and visiting when I’m a pastor.” Another pastor-in-training put it this way: “I’m more of a prophetic teacher, so I’m looking for a kingly type to supplement my leadership style by taking care of strategy and vision.” Church planters in particular seemed eager to pigeonhole themselves and their fellow leaders into anointed categories of prophet, priest, or king.

When I pressed these individuals further, I realized they were operating with a leadership model that they perceived to be well-grounded in the Scriptures. From the perspective of these students, to lead like Jesus was to imitate one or more of the Old Testament offices that Jesus fulfilled. As they saw it, the threefold office of prophet, priest, and king—the munus triplex—provides a typology for church leadership. As pastors, they could be prophets, priests, and kings, by virtue of possessing prophetic, priestly, or kingly gifts in differing degrees.

Prophets, Priests, and Kings—a Typology for Christian Leadership?

The perspective represented by the students who were eagerly classifying one another as prophets, priests, and kings connects each anointed role in ancient Israel with a type of church leader. Those with strong teaching gifts are considered prophets; counselors and caregivers are classified as priests; those who can lead organizations effectively are identified as kings. Several modern Reformed theologians—including John Frame,Vern Poythress, and R.B. Kuiper—have tied prophecy to the work of the church’s teaching elders, while priesthood is linked to deacons and kingly functions are correlated with the church’s ruling eldership.

According to this way of thinking, different church leaders possess prophetic, priestly, and kingly capacities in differing degrees, and the most appropriate role for each leader depends on which of these capacities happens to be strongest. Building on this typology, pastor and conference speaker Drew Goodmanson has promoted the three offices as leadership personality types of a sort, identifying prophets as those leaders who are gifted as teachers, priests as those who care for people’s needs, and kings as planners and organizers. Vern Poythress further suggests that ‘all the gifts mentioned in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4 can be roughly classified as prophetic, kingly, or priestly.’

But what biblical warrant is there for clustering church leaders into categories of prophets, priests, and kings?

What I argue in detail in the book The God Who Goes Before You is that, even though the threefold office of prophet, priest, and king is itself a venerable structure, the appropriation of prophet, priest, and king as a typology for church leadership is not. In fact, this usage of the munus triplex falls far short when it comes to support either from Scripture or from church history. Particularly absent in Scripture is any clear identification of these offices with specific traits that different church leaders possess in differing degrees. In this excerpt from The God Who Goes Before You, I’ve summarized a few of the problems with using the munus triplex as a leadership typology as well as sketching out a new possibility for how we might link Old Testament kingship to the life of the church today.

Kingship in the Old Covenant

God had promised the Israelites that he would provide everything his people might need to flourish in the land if only they would remain faithful to his covenant. And yet, a time would come when the people would no longer be satisfied with what their God offered. They would demand a king to represent them, to fight for them, and to become their judge so they could become ‘like all the other nations’ (1 Samuel 8:20; see also 12:12). The people’s desire for a king was not a problem. Kingship had, in fact, been part of God’s plan from the beginning (Genesis 17:6, 16; 35:11; Numbers 24:17). The people’s desire was not, however, merely to have a king but to set up a king in the same manner and for the same purposes as the nations around them.

Foreseeing the people’s request, Moses mapped out a clear manifesto for Israel’s monarchy in Deuteronomy 17. This design would indeed provide Israel with a king—but the monarchy that Moses described would, in some sense, accomplish the opposite of what Israel would demand. In God’s design for Israel, kingship would not be a status to be seized or a goal to be achieved for one’s own benefit. Kingship would be a gift to be received in God’s time by God’s grace for the good of God’s people. The result would be a monarchy that would make Israel unlike any other nation under heaven.

A Son, Selected From Among His Brothers

In other nations, a king or priest might be seen as the son of a deity, divinely elevated above his subjects. In Israel, however, the entire nation was God’s son corporately, and everyone—including the king—was a brother (Exodus 4:22-23; 6:3-9; see also Sirach 36:17). The position to which the king would be called was not sovereignty above or separate from the community of Israel but stewardship within the community in submission to God’s Word. The king’s responsibilities as a brother within the covenant community always superseded any power he might enjoy as a monarch over the covenant community.

A Servant and a Student, Submitted to God’s Word

The priority of the king’s exemplary faithfulness to the covenant is particularly clear in the prohibitions that Moses placed on future kings. The purpose of these prohibitions was to drive Israel to entrust their security to the faithfulness of God rather than relying on their own prosperity or political power. The prohibitions given to kings were threefold, each one declaring something that the king must not do ‘for himself.’

  1. The king ‘must not acquire many horses for himself.’ Deuteronomy 17
  2. The king ‘must not acquire many wives for himself.’
  3. The king ‘must not acquire very large amounts of silver and gold for himself.’

And yet, there was one item that he was specifically commanded to make ‘for himself.’

The king was called to ‘write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests’ (Deuteronomy 17:18 NASB).

By copying the covenant anew, each king of Israel would engage in a sacred act that would produce a sacred artifact. Through this act and artifact, every king of Israel would participate anew in God’s covenant with Israel. In kingdoms surrounding Israel, covenant documents might be kept in a temple so that a priest could read the treaty to the king at designated times. Statements of deposition may be found in several surviving Hittite treaties: ‘A duplicate of this tablet is deposited before the Sun-Goddess of Arinna since the Sun-Goddess of Arinna governs kingship and queenship,’ reads one such document. Moses prescribed a similar practice for Israel each year at the Feast of Tabernacles (Deuteronomy 31:9-13) in addition to the requirement that the king copy and keep a copy of God’s Law; however, Moses called for a reading of God’s Law not merely in the hearing of Israel’s leaders but in the presence of everyone in Israel (‘men, women, children, and foreigners’).

This personal copy of the covenant would serve as a working document to direct every judgment that the king handed down. The same words that once thundered from the peak of Mount Sinai would rest at king’s fingertips to mold his life and his leadership. The result would be a leader who feared God, submitted to God’s instruction, enacted God’s statutes, and taught his sons to do the same (17:19-20).

The king stood, in some sense, in continuity with the judges of Israel—but, whereas the justice of a judge was limited to a certain region and lasted only until his or her death, the justice of a royal dynasty could last forever and extend as far as Israel’s borders.

The Rise and Fall of Israel’s Kings

Israel’s kings failed miserably at this task of judging the people with perfect justice. And yet, God never gave up.

God never backed away from his divine design for a perfect king—a king who would judge with perfect justice, depend on God’s power, and submit to God’s instruction.

Such a king would stand as a model of life lived in covenant with God. And yet, such a monarchy seemed to stand beyond any human capacity. The world needed a judge and king whose every verdict was faithful and true, but—by the time the kingdoms crumbled and the Israelites were taken into exile—every human judge and dynasty had failed.

The Return of the King

It was in the virgin womb of a girl from Galilee that the consummate fulfillment of kingship began to blossom into the fullness that God had always intended (Luke 1:32-33). God himself entered the cosmos in the flesh of Jesus Christ to do what no previous king had done or could do: he upheld every covenant of God and inaugurated a ‘kingdom not of this world’ to provide a foretaste of perfect justice on the face of a fallen earth (John 18:36). From the womb of Mary to the garden tomb and beyond, this Son of David followed every detail of God’s design for kingship. He submitted to his Father’s Word, rejected every trapping of earthly power, and refused to exalt himself above his brothers (John 5:19-20; 8:54; 18:36). He was a king who came proclaiming a kingdom (Matthew 4:23; Mark 1:15; Luke 4:43), and he will come again to multiply this kingdom around the globe until the earth is ‘filled with the knowledge of the LORD’s glory, as the waters cover the sea’ (Habakkuk 2:14).

Kingly Leadership in the New Covenant

In light of what we’ve learned about kings in the old covenant, how should this kingship shape the leadership of God’s new covenant people?

According to those who treat kingship as a typology for a particular kind of church leader, kingly leaders are visionary builders who develop organizational strategies and take responsibility for the church’s direction. ‘Ultimately’—one proponent of this typological approach claims—‘large ministry areas must be led by a king’ because kingly leaders are the ones who actually get jobs done. Another proponent of this approach specifically urges ‘upper-echelon leaders of complex organizations’ to live as kingly leaders, emulating the template for Old Testament kings.

Scripture, however, never describes kingship in terms of visionary leadership or strategies.

Neither in Moses’s description of God’s design nor in later depictions of the ideal king is there any hint that visionary organizational strategies were part of the job description for kings in Israel.

Even if we suppose that kingship is a type of leadership that can be conveyed to particular individuals in the church, the definition of a kingly leader as a dominant visionary strategist is unbalanced at best and fundamentally flawed at worst. Treating kingly leadership as visionary organizational strategy imports a very modern concept of leadership into old covenant kingship and, in the process, skews our understanding of church leadership in the new covenant.

This is not to suggest that visionary strategies are unhelpful or unnecessary in leadership! The point is that Scripture never links these capacities to the office of king or even to a particular role in the church. Kingship in the old covenant was focused primarily on modeling covenant faithfulness and judging the people in righteousness, not on visionary leadership or strategic planning.

New Covenant Kingship as Communal Identity

Even more problematic for the claim that kingly leadership is conveyed to particular individuals in the church is the fact that kingship in the new covenant is never identified as the property of individual Christians. Kingship in the kingdom of God is ascribed to God in Christ and to the whole people of God in union with Christ. Jesus promised his first disciples that they would reign alongside him (Matthew 19:28; Luke 22:30). But this glorious privilege extended far beyond the apostles! ‘If we endure, we’—Paul wrote to Timothy, referring to all of God’s people—‘will also reign with him’ (2 Timothy 2:12; see also 1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 20:4-6). Through union with Christ, every believer in Christ participates in the kingship of Christ, but this participation is corporate and communal, not individual.

None of us is called to live as a kingly leader individually or independently in the church of Jesus Christ. When a few Christians in Corinth began to act like royalty in a manner that separated them from their fellow believers, Paul called them to return to unity with the body. ‘You have begun to reign as kings without us,’ Paul declared with a generous dollop of sarcasm, ‘and I wish you did reign, so that we could also reign with you!’ (1 Corinthians 4:8). Instead of claiming any kingly role over the Corinthians for himself, Paul called them to imitate his pattern of living as a servant of Christ and a manager of God’s mysteries (1 Corinthians 4:1, 16).

New Covenant Kingship as Proleptic Participation in the Final Judgment

So, if kingly leadership isn’t an individual capacity for organizational effectiveness and strategic vision, what is it?

The ideal king in the Old Testament was an exemplar of covenant faithfulness who judged his people according to God’s Word. This connection is worked out more fully in The God Who Goes Before You.Here, it is worth noting that, even in the New Testament,

  • when Jesus told the apostles that those who remained with him would also reign alongside him, he tied this reign to participation in the judgment of God’s people (Matthew 19:28; Luke 22:28-30), and,
  • when the saints were enthroned in John’s heavenly vision, they were ‘given authority to judge’ (Revelation 20:4).

It seems, then, that one of the primary expressions of our union with Christ the King will be participation in his judgment at the end of time. And yet, our participation in this future judgment will not wait until the end of time. The church’s participation begins in the present. Whenever God’s people join together in the holy work of church discipline, we participate in the very judgments of God.

When Christ returns and reigns at the end of the age, all those united with him will join him in judging the cosmos (1 Corinthians 6:1-11; Revelation 20:4). Whenever we engage in church discipline, we rehearse this future prospect by staging a small play that pictures the great judgment that is yet to come. This proleptic participation in God’s future judgment is not merely symbolic; neither is it accomplished fully in the church’s present pursuit of justice. It is an actual—albeit incomplete—participation in God’s future judgment, made possible through our union with the one whom God has appointed to enact justice in his world.

Think About Leadership:
Have you heard prophets, priests, and kings used as a leadership typology? What has been your perspective on this typology in the past? How has this post altered your view?

Leadership: The God Who Goes Before You

Today, The God Who Goes Before You is finally available in bookstores! This book on leadership develops a fresh definition of pastoral leadership that is thoroughly grounded in the storyline and canon of Scripture. As the book unfolds, what Michael Wilder and I have developed together is a vision for the leadership of God’s people that focuses not on particular leadership techniques but on the patterns that should characterize a pastor’s pursuit of Christ.

Here’s what a wide-ranging group of pastors and leaders have had to say after reading The God Who Goes Before You:

  • “The God Who Goes Before You understands that leadership cannot be reduced to business-oriented best practices or pragmatic commitments. … This is an important book full of biblical insight and pastoral wisdom.”
    R. Albert Mohler, President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
  • “The God Who Goes Before You … connect[s] the practice of leadership to the story of Scripture, pointing leaders toward a more biblical and faithful model.”
    Russell D. Moore, President, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission
  • “From helpful explanations of leadership offices in the Old Testament to simple yet profound challenges that leadership for the believer is first followership, this book is filled with wisdom.”
    Eric Geiger, Senior Pastor, Mariners Church
  • “Do we really need another book on leadership? The answer is a heartfelt ‘yes’ when that book is a distinctively Christian, practically-designed, gospel-focused biblical theology of leadership. Timothy Paul Jones and Michael Wilder have provided so much more than another ‘how-to’ guide for pastors and CEOs. This highly recommended volume presents a thoughtful, integrative, and theologically-shaped approach to leadership that calls for investing in people and in the shared calling of a faithful community for the glory of God.”
    David S. Dockery, President, Trinity International University and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
  • “What a delight to read a book on pastoral leadership rooted in careful biblical exegesis and shaped by biblical theology.”
    Thomas R. Schreiner, Professor of New Testament Interpretation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
  • “If you’re tired of Christian leadership books based merely on business practices and creational wisdom with a few Bible verses sprinkled throughout, then this book is for you! In The God Who Goes Before You, Timothy Paul Jones and Michael Wilder argue, from the entire storyline of Scripture, that Christian leaders are, first and foremost, Christ-followers.”
    Juan R. Sanchez, Senior Pastor, High Pointe Baptist Church
  • “Michael Wilder and Timothy Paul Jones … have provided deeply biblical and practical guidance on how to steward a congregation under Christ’s leadership.”
    Kevin Ezell, President, North American Mission Board
  • “Jones and Wilder have given the church a valuable work on leadership that is … defined and motivated by the work of Christ in the history of redemption. With great social intelligence, they offer a much-needed correction to current models of church leadership adapted from Wall Street.”
    Eric C. Redmond, Associate Professor of Bible, Moody Bible Institute
  • “Michael Wilder and Timothy Jones have profoundly shaped my view of biblical and pastoral leadership. … Their unique blend of scholarship and pastoral experience makes them the capable guides we need to lead us to the biblical heart of true pastoral leadership.”
    Beau Hughes, Lead Pastor, The Village Church Denton
  • “Rather than laying a Christian veneer over secular principles, this book will challenge you to consider seriously what it means to draw your leadership practices from God’s Word.”
    Jeff Iorg, President, Gateway Seminary
  • “Reading this book is like feeling a cool, fresh breeze on a hot, humid summer day. Finally, someone has considered the whole counsel of God when considering leadership, Jesus, and the church.”
    Benjamin L. Merkle, Professor of New Testament and Greek, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
  • “The God Who Goes Before You is a gift to the church. … Wilder and Jones have given us a rich theology and gems of pastoral wisdom for stewarding leadership in the service of God’s people.”
    Kevin Peck, Lead Pastor, The Austin Stone Community Church
  • “The God Who Goes Before You is the leadership book that I’ve longed to read. Jones and Wilder write theologically rich content, rooted in years of pastoral experience. This book both critiques and considers the best leadership principles from Christian and secular leaders.”
    Jamaal Williams, Lead Pastor, Sojourn Community Church Midtown
  • “Not every book about leadership written for a Christian audience is biblical, insightful, thorough, inspiring, and challenging. This one is! The ideal Christian leader is someone who has been shaped by the character of God and who follows the Lord so well that others are inspired to follow Christ.”
    Miguel Núñez, Pastor, Iglesia Bautista Internacional
  • “There are many leadership books available to the church, but few speak with a prophetic voice that addresses timely leadership issues. … The book you hold in your hands is such a voice. As churches continue to rise and often fall around the personality and charisma of one domineering leader, The God Who Goes Before You is a needed voice to bring balance.”
    Brian Croft, Senior Pastor, Auburndale Baptist Church
  • “Rich in content, impressive in scope, and practical in aim, Jones and Wilder have served local churches and the academy by contributing this work to the field of leadership.”
    Dave Harvey, President, Sojourn Network
  • “Readers will evaluate leadership motifs in light of the fact that all believers have full access to God’s revelation and thus will walk away asking, ‘How can I best serve and care for the people in my community? The authors submit (and rightly so) that it will take ‘courage, creativity and conviction.’”
    David D. Nemitz, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership, Liberty University School of Divinity
  • “Churches close daily due to poor pastoral leadership. This book offers pastors an answer to that problem—a biblical answer. … Chapter by chapter, Jones and Wilder ask, ‘What about you?’ It is a hint of the value and practicality of this work.”
    Gary J. Bredfeldt, Professor of Leadership, Liberty University School of Divinity
  • “Written by two scholar-practitioners who love and serve the local church, this theology of leadership is accessible, fresh, and faithful—a gift to the church.”
    Andrew Hebert, Lead Pastor, Paramount Baptist Church
  • “The Christ-following leadership principles of this book provide a distinct biblical framework for leaders who guide churches, Christian universities, or faith-based organizations.”
    Timothy L. Smith, President, University of Mobile
  • “Ready to rethink pastoral leadership through a Scriptural lens? Jones and Wilder, with decades of pastoral leadership experiences, have crafted a unique text on leadership for pastors.”
    Kenneth S. Coley, Director of Ed.D. Studies, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
  • “In this outstanding book, Timothy Paul Jones and Michael Wilder have zeroed in on the central elements for Christian leadership: union with Christ, communion with Christ’s people, and mission in the world.”
    Andrew M. Davis, Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church of Durham

Leadership: Kingly Leadership in the New Covenant

This post is excerpted from my book The God Who Goes Before You: Pastoral Leadership as Christ-Centered Followership.You can order the book here.

What does kingship in the Old Testament have to do with church leadership today?

Quite a lot, as it turns out—though perhaps not in the way you would assume.Continue reading.

Leadership: Leadership as Followership in the Life of Moses

This post was written with Michael Wilder and is excerpted from our book The God Who Goes Before You. You can order the book here.

Incompetent Leaders, Omnicompetent God

The opening verses of Exodus invite readers into a story that stretches backward through Abraham to the very beginning of time. Moses wrote that “the Israelites were fruitful, increased rapidly, multiplied, and became extremely numerous” (Exodus 1:7). When Moses wrote these words, he was reminding his readers that God never forgot the purposes he had when he created Adam or the promises he made when he called Abraham (compare Genesis 1:28; 9:7; 17:6; 28:3; 35:11; 47:27; 48:4).

Continue reading.

Leadership: Shepherd Leadership as God-Centered Followership

This post on shepherd leadership is excerpted from my book The God Who Goes Before You. You can order the book here.

The Failure of Israel’s Shepherds

Have you ever faced a situation where someone did such a poor job on a project that you declared, “I’ll just do it myself”?

That’s not too different from what God did in response to the self-centered shepherd leaders of the nation of Judah in the Old Testament.

“I will demand my flock from them and prevent them from shepherding the flock,” the God of Israel declared. “I will tend my flock” (Ezekiel 34:10, 15). Faced with shepherds who had abused and exploited his flock, God declared that he was handing a heavenly pink slip to the leaders of Judah and taking over as the shepherd of his sheep (see also Zechariah 10:3; 11:4-17; 13:7).

Continue reading.

Leadership: Priestly Leadership in the New Covenant

What does priesthood in the Old Testament have to do with church leadership today?

Quite a lot, as it turns out—though perhaps not in the way you would assume!

Priestly leadership isn’t about becoming a priest; it isn’t even about becoming a caregiver or counselor for the people of God.

To understand the implications of Old Testament priesthood for the church today, let‘s first take a look at an overlooked aspect of priesthood in the Old Testament.Continue reading.

Sermon: The Wisdom that Comes from Peace

“Peace be with you.” Christians all around the world repeat these words every week—but what would our lives look like if peace really was woven into every part of our lives? The book of James provides us with a clue: “The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace,” James writes, “by those who cultivate peace” (James 3:18).

Seen from the Spirit-inspired perspective of James, peace produces a harvest of righteousness. What becomes clear throughout the rest of the epistle of James is that this harvest of righteousness is closely connected to wisdom—a true and authentic wisdom that comes “from above.”

So how do we live in this peace that produces wisdom? That’s what we explored together in this sermon, preached at the Midtown congregation of Sojourn Community Church, where I serve as one of the pastors.

Continue reading.

Church History: When Did Churches Stop Baptizing by Immersion?

As part of my research for the chapter on baptism in a recent book written by the faculty of Southern Seminary, one of the questions that I wanted to answer was, “When did churches leave behind the New Testament practice of immersion?” The answer is, “Far later than you probably think.”

Most of the students I teach seem to assume that the practice of immersion was already long-forgotten by the time of the Reformation—but this assumption doesn’t fit the historical facts. The facts are considerably more complex, but this much is clear: baptism by immersion was far from forgotten in the Western church in the era of the Reformation.

Continue reading.

Sermon: The King Who Died with an Open Hand

img_1338In 2007, a movie starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman wove a new phrase into the vocabulary of Western culture. This new phrase also happened to be the name of the movie: The Bucket List. A bucket list is a series of experiences that you want to have before you “kick the bucket.” Near the end of the first book of Chronicles, we find the bucket list of Israel’s most revered king, David the son of Jesse—but it’s not the type of bucket list you might expect a king to keep. There was, in fact, only one item on David’s bucket list, and it was this: “It was in my heart to build a resting place for the ark of the covenant of the LORD” (1 Chronicles 28:2).

God, however, refused to allow David to fulfill that one item on his bucket list. Instead of building the temple that he had envisioned, David gave everything he possessed to build a resting place that his eyes would never see. David died with an open hand.

Continue reading.

Writing: If You Want to Remember It, Write It By Hand

Words and writing matter.

In the opening chapter of the Scriptures, God speaks, and a cosmos bursts into being (Genesis 1:3). When he constitutes Israel as his  people, God speaks and writes, and a covenant is born (Exodus 31:18). John described the incarnation of God in Christ by declaring, “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14). Continue reading.

Sermon: Learning to Live in Awe

“For this reason,” Paul declared in his letter to the Ephesians, “I fall to my knees before the Father” (3:14). When people fall to their knees in the Bible, we tend to assume that the primary purpose of their prostration is prayer—and that was indeed part of what Paul was expressing here. But that’s not all that Paul seems to have been saying here. Kneeling is, in this text, more than a convenient posture for prayer. This is Paul’s moment of surrender in response to something that had inspired deep awe in his soul.

So what was it in this text that caused Paul to fall to his knees in prayerful awe? It wasn’t a miraculous vision, and it wasn’t a voice from heaven. It was something that may seem quite mundane to many of us. It was something that is experienced today by billions of people around the globe.

Continue reading.

Church History: The Centrality of Scripture in the Ministry of Macrina

Two years after the Council of Nicaea in the year 325, Macrina the Younger was born. She—as Coleman Michael Ford has pointed out—

lived between two worlds. One world was the age of Christian persecution by the likes of emperor Diocletian and others. For many Christians in the three centuries before Macrina’s birth, persecution leading to death was an ever-present reality. At best, Christians were merely tolerated. At worst, they were brutally executed. The second world was the emerging Roman empire of Constantine, an empire in which Christianity was officially recognized and privileges towards churches and leaders grew steadily.

Two of her brothers—Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa—became known, along with their friend Gregory of Nazianzus, as “the Great Cappadocians,” due to their contributions to the widespread establishment of an orthodox view of the Trinity in the eastern half of the Roman Empire. Basil was a man of action, Nazianzus was a great orator, and Nyssa was a deep thinker—but Macrina should be revered and remembered no less than these three Cappadocian fathers.

After her family’s wealth was divided among the children, Macrina convinced her mother to establish a religious community for women on the family’s property in the province of Pontus, on the banks of the River Iris. The family’s slaves were set free and the female former slaves became members of a new religious community, where Macrina worked alongside them as an equal. In the words of her brother Gregory,

Now that all the distractions of the material life had been removed, Macrina persuaded her mother to give up her ordinary life and all showy style of living and the services of domestics to which she had been accustomed before, and bring her point of view down to that of the masses, and to share the life of the maids, treating all her slave girls as if they were sisters and as ones who belonged to the same rank as herself.

Basil established a men’s monastery across the river from Macrina’s community, but Macrina contributed to the spiritual leadership of both communities. On July 19, in the year 379, Macrina died in the religious community that she and her mother had founded.

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Church History: The True Story of St. Patrick

imageThis week, in the year AD 461, Patrick of Ireland passed away. Ever since the early seventeenth century, churches have designated March 17 as St. Patrick’s Day. Prohibitions on feasting during the season of Lent were traditionally lifted on this day, and green had been associated with Ireland at least as early as the seventeenth century. The result has been a tradition of kisses and pinches, partying and wearing emerald hues on March 17.Continue reading.

Writing: If You Want to Remember It, Write It By Hand

Words and writing matter.

In the opening chapter of the Scriptures, God speaks, and a cosmos bursts into being (Genesis 1:3). When he constitutes Israel as his  people, God speaks and writes, and a covenant is born (Exodus 31:18). John described the incarnation of God in Christ by declaring, “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14). Continue reading.

Family Ministry: When and Why Did Weekly Children’s Classes Begin in Churches? (Part Three)

This research into the history of age-organized catechetical classes in the church is based on an academic paper that I presented to the practical theology section of the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 16, 2017.

This post is the third in a three-part series.

Click here for Part One in the series.

Click here for Part Two in the series.

“The Church of God Will Never Preserve Itself Without a Catechism”: Confirmation and Catechetical Instruction in the English Reformation

Following the death of King Henry VIII in 1547, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer grew a beard that suggested solidarity with the continental Reformers—but it was not merely in his pogonotrophic proclivities that the Archbishop of Canterbury imitated what was happening on the other side of the English Channel. Cranmer—not unlike Calvin—required catechesis of children in the context of the church.

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Family Ministry: When and Why Did Weekly Children’s Classes Begin in Churches? (Part Two)

This research into the history of age-organized ministries in the church is based on an academic paper that I presented to the practical theology section of the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 16, 2017.

This post is the second in a three-part series.

Click here for Part One in the series.

Click here for Part Three in the series.

“At Midday, There Is to Be Catechism”: Weekly Classes for Children in Sixteenth-Century Geneva

John Calvin provided instructions for catechesis in the same section of the ecclesiastical ordinances in which he described the frequency and locations for weekly pastoral proclamations of Scripture. He directed that each Sunday “at midday, there is to be catechism, that is, instruction of little children, in all the three churches.” The individual responsible for this instruction in each congregation was to be the pastor.

These weekly catechetical classes were designed as a distinct and separate gathering for children, and children’s attendance was not optional. Continue reading.

Family Ministry: When and Why Did Weekly Children’s Classes Begin in Churches? (Part One)

This research into the history of age-organized ministries in the church is based on an academic paper that I presented to the practical theology section of the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 16, 2017. This post is the first in a three-part series.

Click here for Part Two in the series.

Click here for Part Three in the series.

In recent years, a small but vocal cluster of church leaders has contended that age-organized programs and ministries in the church should be eliminated. These proponents of “family-integrated church” have called for churches to dismantle programs that practice systematic “age-segregated discipleship.” In churches that follow this model, the congregation has no youth ministers, children’s ministers, or nursery. “We do not divide families into component parts,” writes one proponent of family-integrated churches. “We don’t even do it in Bible study.” The support claimed for family-integrated ministry is typically twofold, contending both that age-organized ministries are unwarranted by Scripture and that ministries for children and youth are a recent innovation that represents the imposition of “individualistic philosophies” in the church.

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Church History: Martin Luther and the Ninety-Five Theses

On October 31, 1517, a monk and professor named Martin Luther sent a document entitled Disputatio Pro Declaratione Virtutis Indulgentiarum to the archbishop of Mainz. This Disputatio consisted of ninety-five theses for theological debate. Perhaps on October 31 or more probably a week or two later, Luther hammered the theses to the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg. Although the Protestant Reformation was a complex social movement with many causes, this event is frequently identified as the beginning of the Reformation.Continue reading.

Sermon: The Cycle That Only A Cross Could End

“If only I could see God do something amazing, then it would be easier to follow him.” Has that thought ever occurred to you? It’s certainly crossed my mind from time to time! And yet, what we learn throughout the Scriptures is that, even when people did see God do something amazing, faithfulness wasn’t any easier for them.Continue reading.

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