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Timothy the Proven Envoy - PH59-01
Advanced Bible Doctrine - Philippians 2:22-24© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1976)
We are continuing study in Philippians 2 of the young man Timothy, the proven envoy of the apostle Paul. As we have learned, Timothy
was very dear to Paul, and he was a vital associate in the apostolic ministry of Paul in the establishing of New Testament churches.
The reason for this was that Timothy had a mental attitude which was willing to function under the authority of Paul. In other words,
Timothy was the kind of a worker who did what he was told. He was the kind of a soldier that you could depend upon in the Lord's army that
a commander in the field holds in the highest esteem–the kind of troops that are essential for victory. Soldiers who will not do what
they are told are soldiers who lose battles. Timothy was a soldier who was a winner because he respected the authority of Paul and
subjected himself to that.
Consequently, he was willing not to be in the limelight while he was serving the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't
seek to be billed as the co-star of the Paul and Timothy evangelistic team as they went about the New Testament world. I can tell you that
this is a very valuable kind of associate. I've had my experiences with just this kind of associate in the ministry–people who were
willing to do the job that was necessary to be done–men who were willing to be second on the team, who in their own right had many
very capable qualities themselves, and who could be, and in time were, the chief on the team.
We are talking about communicators of doctrine, or pastor-teachers.
Anybody who's going into the ministry has to learn, first of all, to be subject to the authority of those above him in spiritual
things. So Timothy did not try to be a star. As a matter of fact, I've observed that obscure Bible teachers are sometimes able to do
the most good for the body of Christ of anyone. Whereas people who have a little fame and notoriety are very much tempted to start
playing the arrogant role of a celebrity. There is a certain great value in being an unknown. You are free of a lot of temptations
in the ministry if nobody knows you, and if your name has not gone very far.
So Timothy actually had a good thing going for him in some
respects in the fact that he was not in the limelight. He was in a secondary position. That really opened up to him opportunities to
do things that the chief on the team often could not do.
Timothy had a spiritual maturity structure in his soul, and that was essential
for him to be able to control the lusts of the old sin nature that were within him. Because he had this kind of control,
he was able to be a help to Paul, and not a further burden to him in addition to all the other things he had. Timothy treated Paul's
spiritual authority and Paul's office with respect because he was a mature man. Timothy represents a vast company of local church believers
who, over the centuries, have always been able to be counted upon when it came to doing the Lord's work. Without these doers of the word,
no church ministry can go very far. You don't have to be a large church. You don't have to have a large congregation. All you have to
have is a large percentage of the Timothy-type of believer in the assembly. Then God can use that church to accomplish things that
often He may not be able to accomplish with a church ten times your size. It takes people who, like Timothy, don't mind being in the
obscure place; are not looking for a primadonna role; are, not putting on airs for people, but are simply serving as unto the Lord.
So Timothy has proven his spiritual leadership to the Philippian Christians during the contacts that he had with them. The Philippians,
who had this knowledge of Timothy's value, received this as the result of a longtime association with him.
It takes time to develop a frame of reference for you as an individual believer so you can sit in a church
service and say, "This is a worthy church service. This is a person who is teaching me," or, "This is a person who is kidding me." A lot of
Mickey Mouse type of thing goes on in churches which are substitutes for real teaching of the Word. So it takes time for you to be
able to develop a frame of reference so that you can judge. It takes time for you to listen to a person long enough that you can spot
him as to whether he's a HICEE type or not.
So these hot-shot, one-night-stand, pulpit-glamor-boy types tend to draw the believers away from their right pastor-teacher. Chasing
specials put on by different churches featuring these wonder-boy pulpit personalities usually will rob you of divine viewpoint.
You don't get many insights from the person who comes through as the spectacular speaker who has some great message to bring you. That
is generally a very shallow relationship. It is best for you not to exhaust yourself in chasing the one-night-standers. Running
around on your pastor-teacher is a form of spiritual adultery. These hit-and-run pulpit personalities actually wouldn't get a hearing
if local pastors were doing their job. People couldn't be less interested. They would yawn in the face of the spectaculars that are
being brought to town.
I want to reassure you, however, that this does not mean that we are not to learn through the teaching
gift of some other pastor-teacher or some other teacher in the body of Christ. We are not to cut ourselves off from men who have the
gift of evangelist and the gift of pastor-teacher. While these men are put in authority over one local congregation, they
are a gift to the body of Christ as a whole. Therefore, we should learn from all of our pastor-teachers. We should learn from all
of our capable teaching men, wherever they are, and whatever means they may provide for that.
What I am saying is that in your local church context, you don't go running around from one church service to another–the spiritual
maverick type, chasing this special and that special. You hang in there with your own church–your faithful Sunday-by-Sunday
meeting-by-meeting of the particular spiritual parent (because that's what your pastor-teacher is) that God gave
you. You are not disloyal to him by exhausting yourself and your attention in other places with other people. We are all to learn from
each other, but we are not to learn at the price of disloyalty to our own divinely appointed spiritual parent, the pastor-teacher.
It is the right thing for you to check out and to be open to any source of divine viewpoint information, and any teaching of the Word
of God that is profitable to you. There are some very excellent pastor-teachers, and what they deliver to their congregation is a benefit
to you and me as well.
So we're not talking about that sort of thing. We're not suggesting that we are to learn only from one person. However, we are suggesting that
you are not to get caught up in these spectacular specials which are stock-in-trade of local churches to give people the impression that they're
really getting something. This is the common comparison between churches. It'll be that your church doesn't do things for people, but this church
over here does things for people. Well, what does that mean? Usually that's translated into saying, "Well, this church over here has a single's
association group." Here's a girl who's single. She's 32 years old and she's never been married. She can go to this church, and this church has a
file system. She can go and say, "I'd like to meet a fellow that has colorful eyes; really wavy hair; and, a ski-nose. That just really gets me.
They'll go through their file and they'll say, "Well, here's Sam and Joe," and so on. Then she will come to church and she'll manage to
sit next to these compatible types that they have arranged for her. Then they'll have social groups where they can intermingle with one another.
That is what they're talking about.
They actually mean that your church should be a lonely hearts club that's trying to bring folks together. Or they have the senior citizen program,
and they arrange for all the senior citizens to be able to visit the zoo in Fort Worth and the wax museum in Dallas. And they give them a discount
rate. And everybody feels this is really so wonderful: "This church is really meeting the needs of people."
Of course, the extreme expression of this is when the preacher himself is marching in the streets for some cause or doing anything under the sun
except studying the Word of God so he knows something that he can teach the flock.
This studying is the kind of thing Timothy did. It takes many hours of study. You can study the Word of God for hours on end and come up with
ten minutes worth of good material, and you're faced with another 35 minutes of speaking. So what do you do then? You tell stories;
you say funny things; or, you start at the beginning and repeat it all over again using different words. Preachers do it all the time.
It literally takes a fantastic number of hours to be able to fill a 45-minute speaking slot. You cannot do that overnight. It takes
years of background, preparation, training, and experience to be able to bring together that much insight of value in the Word
of God.
So when a church is meeting people's needs, it is delivering to them God's mind. It is the mind of Christ that is the most important thing to us.
The people who are oddballs in life are those who do not have the mind of Christ. The people who have tensions in life and conflicts
in some area of their life are the people who do not have the mind of Christ. They are turning to the mind of the world to try
to find solutions.
So you can see why Paul was so fantastically taken by Timothy. Paul could say to the young man Timothy, "You know
my doctrine backwards and forwards thoroughly. Furthermore, you have a mental attitude that is willing to be in a modest place, and
to do your job as unto the Lord, and that makes you an invaluable person to me."
This is what we pastor-teachers suffer from more
than anything else in the local church. It is the fact that people cannot be responsible for areas of ministry. So Timothy was a man
who knew his doctrine and who also knew, consequently, how to do his job, and he devoted himself to it. So Paul could say of him, "But, I
want to add something to connect with what I have already said. You know by experience that Timothy has proven himself because as a son with
a father he has served me in the gospel."
The word "son" is the word "teknon," and "teknon" really means "child." The term "child" here indicates
that Timothy worked under Paul's spiritual authority.
It also indicates the very important fact that Paul was training this man. When
Paul says, "I am related to Timothy as a father is related to his child," Paul is indicating that he was the one who was teaching Timothy
so that the time could come for Timothy to be able to go it alone in the Lord's work.
The time came when the apostle Paul said, "Now,
Timothy, you know what I have done for you. Now I want you to do the same thing for other men who are potential pastor-teachers."
Obviously, in any congregation, there is always the potential of a pastor-teacher. I have come to realize something that was not
a position that I held earlier in our ministry here in Britain. As a matter of fact, I used to look with some reservations about somebody
who would say, "I think I have the gift of preaching. I think I have the gift of being a pastor. I'm looking forward to being a pastor."
My first question would be, "Well, where have you gone to school?" Sometimes I would meet men who were actually in the pastorate, and I
would say, "Where did you go to school?" They might say, "I never went to school."
Now, often it is true that those men were saying, "Well, I just had this call to preach. I had this vision, or this call to preach. God
has called me to preach. I'm going to get out there and preach. That's all I need. If God calls me, I'm going to preach." Well, you know
very well that he's going to preach ignorance. But I also realize now that if a church is really doing its job of instructing people in
the Word of God on the basis of the original languages, so people see that the authority is indeed in the Word of God, there are going
to be men that God is going to bring into that congregation who indeed have the pastor-teacher gift, and they're going to get their training
right there in that congregation. It is not impossible that we have men in this session today who in time God is going to say, "Now I want
to put you in charge over this church, and I want you to start teaching them the things that you have been taught and that you have
learned."
That's exactly what 2 Timothy 2:2 means when Paul says to young Timothy, "And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses
(the Bible doctrine that you learned from me), you commit the same to faithful men who have the pastor-teacher gift who will be able to
teach others also who have the pastor-teacher gift.
That's the chain reaction. Paul, who is headed for execution, writes this letter and says, "Timothy, now, I want to remind you:
I took you as a young man; I taught you the Word of God; I trained you in the understanding and the background in the HICEE technique;
you are a good expositor of the Word; you're prepared to do the job now; and, I want you to pass on what I have taught you to other men.
When I'm gone, Timothy, it's going to be on your shoulders and the shoulders of the other men who understand this method, and who have
been taught by me. You're going to have to teach someone else, and the person you teach will then come into a church, and in time, God
will send men into his church who are pastor-teachers, and they will be taught."
So don't discount the fact that God has given you the pastor-teacher gift. Because you don't happen to be in Dallas Seminary does not mean that you
cannot be the pastor of a church. Once you learn the principles of doctrine and the basics of using the language, you are prepared and qualified in
God's sight to be a teacher of the Word, and to exercise your gift.
So this man, Timothy, was related to Paul in that way. This was a father who was teaching
his child. It does not necessarily mean that he was Paul's convert. The point here is that he was Paul's pupil. The training that
Paul gave Timothy for the ministry was a complete grounding in doctrine. You must ask yourself and try to imagine,
"What would Paul have done with Timothy as they traveled around? What kind of things would Paul teach Timothy?" Then match that up against
some of our seminary curriculums today. The smile will quickly come to your face as you must see some of the ludicrous things
that are in the seminary curriculum over what they had in a traveling seminary such as Paul conducted among his young associates.
So Timothy is prepared indeed to exercise the pastor-teacher gift. The people in Philippi, by experience and direct contact with him,
know that he's an excellent communicator. The modern-day pastors, because of what's in seminary curriculum so often, do not learn the
legitimate technique of the HICEE preaching method.
Consequently, they have goals which have been devised by the old sin nature rather than Bible doctrine. Many goals in local churches
are pure old sin nature concepts. They are not the goals from the Word of God.
Timothy was precious to Paul. What did they do? They served together. The word "served" is "douleuo."
"Douleuo" is related to the word "doulos" which is the Greek word for "bondslave." You can see immediately the relationship
between these two words. What "douleuo" actually means is to serve in a subservient way. That is, Timothy served with Paul as a child would
serve with his father in some project. Timothy was in the obscure second position. He was in a subservient spot, and he was willing
to be under the constituted authority and discipline of Paul.
This is in the aorist tense, which means that Timothy's service with Paul
was viewed as a whole; and, as a whole, Paul says his service with him has been that of a son who takes a subservient position to his
father. It is active. Timothy's positive volition was happily willing to serve with Paul as his father in this way. It's indicative.
It's a statement of fact about Timothy's preparation and about his mental attitude in Christian service.
So Timothy understood what Paul meant in 2 Timothy 2:2 to train other pastor-teachers as Paul trained him.
Paul says, "But you know the proof of him, that
as a son with a father, he has served with me." The word "with" is the Greek word "sun" which means "in association with" me. It says,
"It's in the gospel." The word "in" is "eis," that Greek preposition that means "direction." It shows the direction in which
this service was performed.
We might translate it as "in regard to," or "in the furtherance of" the gospel ("euaggelion"). "Euaggelion" means "good news." This is the
good news of a person who deserves the lake of fire being able to escape it by simply accepting a gift from God
in the form of eternal life prepared by Jesus Christ on the cross.
The gospel ministry of Paul and Timothy went from telling a person
how to go to heaven to the point of a spiritual maturity structure. Remember that. The gospel ministry goes from the point of salvation
to the point of a spiritual maturity structure. What the hot-shot one-night-stand communicators like to do is zero in here at the salvation
end. So you've got the traveling speaker who zeros in on the gospel, and then they move on, and actually the new baby born converts, who may
have been saved because of their ministry (or very frequently in spite of their ministry), and have come to a knowledge of salvation, are abandoned.
That is not God's order.
But I want to tell you something. Suppose here is a person to whom you have witnessed. You have given this person the gospel. This person,
under the guidance of God the Holy Spirit, has been brought to conviction. This person responds to that conviction with positive volition,
and he enters the family of God. He is born again. Here is this brand new baby born into God's family. Don't let anybody come along and tell
you that this crib baby here, which indeed needs to be taught, is your responsibility. That's wrong. Anybody that you ever lead to the Lord
Jesus Christ is the responsibility of some pastor-teacher someplace whom God, in eternity past, prepared for that particular convert to be brought
together with. In the providence of God, he will. If you ever lead someone to the Lord, the first thing you do to that person is explain
to him his status of spiritual babyhood, and the necessity now for growth. Then you explain to him that the way he's going to do that
is to come and gather in instruction class of worship with the local believers in the Sunday services and in the Bible classes. You bring
him to church. That's the time to bring people to church.
How many times have you heard the idiot preacher urging his congregation to bring unbelievers to church? Well in the average church, there's
only one message you hear. You hear the gospel. People go to one church for 30 years and they hear one message: the gospel. The only fascinating
thing about it is to be able to think that one man could think up all those ways of presenting the gospel. That's near genius. That in itself is
kind of fascinating–to come to church and hear how the gospel is going to be presented that particular Sunday. However, a
Christian will never grow on the gospel. If all you have is the gospel, you're going to be nothing but spiritual skin and bones.
It takes more.
That's what Paul and Timothy were engaged in. When Paul says, "Timothy was my associate in the gospel," he doesn't mean
that they were just explaining to people how to be born again. It means that they took these converts and they got them into churches.
Sometimes Paul was their pastor-teacher, and sometimes Timothy was their pastor-teacher. It meant that they went on in the training
of these new converts up to maturity.
There are some hot-shot Christian organizations which are based entirely on the concept that
when you have a convert, you are to train him in the Word of God. Where do you get such a notion from the Word of God? No place. But
the idea that comes through very clearly through the Word of God is to get your convert into a HICEE church, and then you will see him
begin to mature, and start on up toward a spiritual maturity structure in his soul. That's the first thing you need to do for him.
Obviously, this is what Paul meant when he spoke about Timothy working with him in the gospel. You have this demonstrated in Acts 20:24.
As he was passing through on his way to go to Jerusalem, we
have Paul stopping near Ephesus, and he sends the word up to Ephesus, and he says, "I want all the pastors in all the house churches
at Ephesus (every elder from every house church congregation) to come and meet with me." So they had this preachers'
meeting down there by the seashore just before Paul boarded ship to go to Jerusalem. He's telling these shepherds (these pastor-teachers)
what their job should be. He says, "The reason I'm stressing this to you is because you men will never see my face again." This was a blow
to them. It caused some of them to burst out in tears. They weren't prepared for this. But Paul had been informed by God that he would
never pass that way again, and these men would never see him again.
So Paul, thinking that through, says, "Now, what do I say to
these pastors? What do I say to these men who have been under my training and who must now carry on the work? I'll never be able to
be with them again. I'll send them a letter, and that'll be it." So he sums up the crucial things. That's naturally what a person
would do.
Notice what he says in Acts 20:24 after he describes the sufferings that he personally has experienced in the ministry:
"But none of these things move me. Neither do I count my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course
with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that
you all, among whom I have gone preaching the Kingdom of God, shall see my face no more. Wherefore I testify unto you this day that
I am pure from the blood of all men." Why? "For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God."
Later the apostle Paul could say, "I have fought
a good fight. I have run my course. I am ready to have my head chopped off; to be executed; and, to be poured out as a libation
upon my service of sacrifice for the Lord Jesus Christ." Why? He says, "Because I have not shunned to deliver the full counsel of the
Word of God."
How many preachers do you know in the circle of your acquaintance today who could honestly say this–that they have not shunned to
deliver to their people the full counsel of the Word of God? How many could say that they have a congregation that understands 1 John 1:9,
for example–what to do when people sin as believers? How many know how to operate under the techniques of the Christian life? Or how
many even know the techniques of the Christian life? How many understand the basic outlines of prophecy so that they know where history is
moving? How many know the basic fundamental major doctrines so that they understand what is involved in salvation and what God has done
for us? How many know in the full gamut of what the Word of God has to say that enables a person to have the mind of Christ?
How many preachers do you know could really say, "I have delivered to this congregation the full counsel of the Word of God?"
As I've said, most of them could only say, "I have delivered them the gospel in 3,000 different variations. Christians need more than the gospel
if they're going to survive in the angelic conflict. Without it, they will be casualties. How many Christians, for example, are at all acquainted
with the Ephesians 6 armor for the Christian soldier in the angelic conflict, and who know how to put the parts of that armor on, and who
know how to use it? As I re-listen to the audio recordings of those particular studies, I am impressed all over again with how crucial an area of
truth this is, and that no Christian is going to make it unless he knows that section of truth backwards and forwards. That is not just some cute
little talk in Ephesians 6 about some little analogies of spiritual truth that preachers might like to use. It is a crucial exposition of how a
Christian survives successfully in combat with the demon angels. You have to know it, and you have to be able to use that passage.
The Preparation of the Pastor-Teacher
So let's look briefly at the preparation of a pastor-teacher for the
pastorate. You may wake up someday, or your son may wake up someday, with the realization that wherever else he's been going in life;
wherever else you've been going in life; whatever your training has been; or, whatever your occupation or your employment has been; it may
finally come through to you, indeed, that you have the gift of a pastor-teacher, and that's where God is moving you and waiting for you
to get on the ball and on the stick with Him to move in that direction. Here are some things you should know about the preparation of
a pastor-teacher.
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Preparation for the pastorate begins with a man's personal salvation. That's when the gift of pastor-teacher is bestowed. As with all of us,
whatever our spiritual gift is, we received it at the point of our new birth, just as we receive our physical abilities at the point of our
physical birth.
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No one who lacks the pastor-teacher gift should be trained for the pastorate. If a man has the gift of evangelist, he should not be a pastor.
Nothing can be worse for a local congregation than for it to get stuck with an evangelist as a pastor. So unless you have the pastor-teacher gift,
you should not be trained for the pastorate.
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Of course, you can see that this is male
type. Women are not pastors. Women do not have the pastor-teacher gift. So women are never to be trained for the pastorate.
I stress that now because practically every major denomination is now ordaining women to the ministry. I'm going to tell
you right now that what you're going to see is a tremendous influx in that direction. It is part of the spiritual degeneration of our
times that women increasingly are coming into the pastorate. This has been commonplace, and not unusual, within the charismatic
circle that you've had women as pastors of churches in direct violation of the principles laid down in 1 Corinthians 14. However, the same
thing is now taking place within the old-line denominations. This only shows how far the regular denominations have now degenerated and deviated
from sound doctrine themselves. So if you are a woman, you do not have the pastor-teacher gift, and you should not be trained for the pastorate.
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The pastor-teacher gift is not necessarily evident in an immature believer. An immature believer may move in a congregation, and he just looks
like another church member. The man sitting next to you may have the pastor-teacher gift, but he may be on the immature side. Therefore, the gift
is not evident, but it's there. At a certain point in his life, suddenly this gift will be there; people will see it; and, you will see it.
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The pastor-teacher gift will be found in many different male personality types. So you can't spot it according to personality. There are always
idiots who believe that a pastor-teacher is a certain personality type. He's the type who stands up and he wears a white shirt;
a tan suit with a little bit of a sporty cut; a tie that matches; and, some brown shoes. I wouldn't be caught dead in an outfit like that, but
there are some people who think that how he dresses is the sign that he's a pastor-teacher type. Or one who is always smiling with a
mouth-full-of-teeth smile.
In seminary now when you preach, they take a videotape of you. That's really a lot more fun because every now and
then you look up at the videotape, and you smile. You keep talking, and then you look back up there to smile because that's what you're supposed
to do. You're supposed to look pleasant. One of our seminary students got kind of a bad grade when he preached because he had a tie
that was so beautiful that it took the instructor's attention away from his message. I don't know what kind of instructors they have at
that seminary. I've never had too much titillation over men's ties myself. But everybody's got his own thing, I suppose. However, you
cannot identify the pastor-teacher type by the personality. Some pastor-teachers look like gangsters. ... There are no types.
Of course, a lot of people think that a pastor-teacher is the very effeminate type. They feel that if he's the pastor-teacher type, he will be
the type that will wait for you to put your foot on his face, and he will look up and say, "Praise the Lord. I'm suffering for Jesus. I love it."
Well, whatever type you think is the pastor-teacher type, you're wrong.
The pastor-teacher is found in the whole gamut of male personality types, and you won't spot it that way. So if someone has given
you the idea that there's something about you that isn't the pastor-teacher type, they're wrong. There is no such thing.
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The pastor-teacher gift becomes evident in a man as he erects a spiritual maturity structure in his soul by means of the grace system
of perception. That's when it becomes evident that you have the pastor-teacher gift: when you develop a certain spiritual maturity yourself.
Until you do that, you won't know that you have it.
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There is no formal surrender to preach. There is no dedication to full-time Christian service which is required to enter the pastorate with the
pastor-teacher. Churches love to do this. That's public relations stuff for the professional preacher. It makes a good impression, especially
if he's part of a denomination where he can go reporting Monday morning when they have their pastors' conference, and they get together, and he
says, "I just had six men who dedicated themselves to full-time Christian service last night, and they're going into the seminary next fall.
This confuses the issue. Very frequently, it leads a person who does not have the pastor-teacher gift into the ministry. That's
the kiss of death. If you don't have the pastor-teacher gift, and somehow you have stumbled into the ministry, God help you. You're going to
be shot full of holes worse than an ideal case of Swiss cheese. You are going to be cut into ribbons and into shreds, and there'll be nothing
but a grease spot left before very long. Yet here it is–preachers who are getting young men to commit themselves to the pastorate
under some false notion that it's up to them to make a public commitment, and then maybe discover they don't have the gift.
I remember a young man in the seminary coming to me one time, and he said, "I have a terrible problem." I said, "What is it?" He said, I'm in
the seminary." I said, "That's not so bad." He said, "Yes, but the reason I'm in it is because everybody back home thinks I'm going into the
ministry." I said, "What are you going to do?" He said, "Well, I don't think I should go into the ministry?" I said, "How did you
end up in the seminary?" He said, "Well, they had this service back home. We're kind of a small church. One night, the pastor asked for someone
who would stand up and give his life to the Lord to go out from that church as a minister of the gospel. And I walked forward.
Now it's embarrassing. Every time I go home, everybody is just so excited to have their young man who is going into the ministry
visiting them from school. I don't know how to go back and tell him that I don't want to be a pastor. I don't want to be in seminary."
He was a pathetic case. There was no solution for his problem except to go home and make a clean break from it and say, "I was in this meeting
and this idiot pastor of ours gave me an invitation to go into the ministry, and I was dumb enough to do it. I don't want any more to
do with it. That's it. I'm going to open up a laundromat, and I like that sort of thing. It makes me feel that everything is coming through clean.
That's it. I don't want anything more to do with it." But he was in a sad way.
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The use of the pastor-teacher gift is not as a result of some special call any more than any other spiritual gift. In other words, you are not
called into the ministry any more than somebody who has the gift of giving is called into the ministry of giving. You not called. If you have
that gift, that's what you're supposed to do. If you have the pastor-teacher gift, that's what you're supposed to do.
Any time somebody gets up and gives you a testimony about having been called into the ministry, that's just imagination running wild,
or a lot of emotion. That is not God the Holy Spirit speaking.
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A man with the pastor-teacher gift has to learn to function
under authority in order that he himself may exercise authority with grace and without abuse. This is why people who have been in
the military make excellent pastor-teachers. Almost inevitably, anybody with military background has learned what it is to be under
authority. Some people think it's almost standard operating procedure–that anybody who's going into the pastorate should
have a tour of duty in the military. Whether that be so or not, the reason for it is well-taken. How ever you learn to be under
authority in your particular case, it's necessary that that is a lesson that you learn.
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A man with the pastor-teacher gift
has to be faithful in small responsibilities before he can be entrusted with the spiritual well-being of a congregation. When you learn
how to be a faithful man in little jobs around the place, then God is going to move you up into the critical job where people's very
spiritual lives are on your shoulders. Please remember that after all is said and done, how much reward you have in heaven is directly
related to your pastor-teacher. There's no way you can get around it. So if you want to go and listen to some clown,
you better just be prepared to pay a very dear price for all eternity. It's not all on the pastor-teacher's shoulders. It's not all his
determination as to what your reward is. Your positive volition is involved also, but it begins with him doing his job of instructing.
Then you go from there. So you have to be faithful in the little things.
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Promotion from little responsibilities to greater
is up to the Lord. Whatever the nature or the size of the increased responsibility, it's up to the Lord. This isn't done by you making
contacts, and by you trying to connive your way forward. A large denomination contacted me when I was in Dallas Seminary, and I'd had
some dealings with this particular denomination. Not many Dallas seminaries moved in that circle. The chief honcho of the Dallas
association called me and said, "John, our denomination feels that you could go someplace with us, and that you would have a great future
among us. We'd like you to come down and to join (and he named a big church in Dallas). We are going to line you up with a series of
speaking engagements. We want you to start moving in these circles so that you will meet certain people and become acquainted with
certain people of influence among us."
Here's a third-year seminary student. That could be a very glittering thing, couldn't it? That could be a very glittering appeal, but that's
pure human promotion. I had no stomach for it because I recognized right off the bat what it was. It was trying to promote yourself. If the Lord
doesn't promote you, I don't care how far you go in a denomination, you aren't anybody. You have promoted yourself, and that's promotion to zero.
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Whatever size the pastor-teacher's congregation is, or what its location is, its basic need is the same–it's constant feeding
on Bible doctrine.
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The pastor-teacher is not to pay attention to the praise of his church members. Church members are prone to praise what the pastor-teacher says.
He'll stand someplace around, maybe at the door. They'll go out and say, "You gave very, very perceptive remarks today, your excellency." He just
gets all oozy and excited about that. So the next thing he does is start wearing a clerical collar. Or maybe you start hanging a clergy sign on
your license plate on your car. I see plenty of those. Don't start calling yourself "reverend" because your congregation has praised you.
Just plain forget about building yourself a reputation by calculated moves.
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A pastor-teacher must always remember that some sheep are really wolves in sheep's clothing. So trust yourself to the Lord alone. Check
Acts 20:29-30. It's very impressive. You'll really get hurt in the pastorate if you don't recognize that some of those sheep are really wolves.
Acts 20:29: "For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you not sparing the flock. Also of your own
selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them." Out of your own congregation, fellow believers are going
to demonstrate that they are wolves wearing sheep's clothing, and they will seek to draw a following aside after themselves.
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A pastor-teacher's main job from God is to study and to teach doctrine. His job does not include providing social services or
entertainments, or to fill any number of traditional roles that people have for a pastor. Don't think that your pastor-teacher is impatient
or unresponsive if you've brought something to him and he indicates to you that he's got the picture. Sometimes you have to talk a
long time to him to convey something. Other times he catches on really quickly. If he gives you the impression, "OK, I've got the picture.
I'll take care of it," or "Let's go on," it is because he's just trying to preserve himself; his sanity; and, his time to do the job that needs
to be done for you. His job is to study and to teach. It takes a monumental number of hours to do that.
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A pastor-teacher has to have a strong spiritual maturity structure to survive in the pastorate. He faces psychological pressures from people
trying to manipulate him and use him against other Christians. That's a favorite tactic in the local church. He is prone to a physical drain
which weakens his creativity and discernment–carrying too many jobs, or pushing too hard on the job. He goes below a certain level of
physical energy and capacity, and then his creativity and even his discernment and judgment splatters out. Or he tries to run a quality
ministry with a lack of funds. People aren't coming through with the funds to do the quality ministry that he's capable of producing,
and that he is trying to provide. The result is that it consumes his time to try to take up the slack. The pressure, consequently, mounts
against him in trying to hold this together for the people of God.
So here are 16 points. Of course, there would be many others. But if you're going to go into the pastorate,
if someday you wake up to the fact that you have the pastor-teacher gift, these 16 points will stand you in very good stead. They will be
a guideline for you that will enable you to use your gift rather than to prostitute it–to use it to the glory of God and to a way that
is honoring to Him. ...
Dr. John E. Danish, 1973
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