Their Ministry

“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:11-12 ESV).

The primary function of these various offices is to equip the people of God to do the work in ministry in order to (purpose clause) build up the body of Christ or so that (result clause) the body of Christ may be built up (cf. NIV; I prefer the result clause). In both cases, the focus of the text is to build up the body of Christ through equipping the people of God in ministry. And God gives different gifts to different individuals to do the task of equipping others.

There is only one definite article before “pastors and teachers.” So, the functions of pastors and teachers are closely associated. In this context, it seems that pastors and teachers are placed in the same category in terms of equipping the people of God in ministry. God gives different gifts to the church to edify the church “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13, ESV). One of these gifts that is given to the church is “teaching pastors.” As Paul said to a young pastor, Timothy, to devote himself “to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching” until he came (1 Tim. 4:13).[1]

The primary function of teaching pastors is to equip the body of Christ so that she may be built up. The ultimate goal of pastoral function is to glorify the Giver who bestows such a gift upon pastors. In other words, the fundamental reasons why pastors exist in the first place are two: 1) They exist for the service of others horizontally; 2) They are called to glorify the Caller vertically. They are here not for themselves. They are in the church not to be supported, but to support others; not to be served, but to serve others; not to be fed, but to feed others; and not to be ministered to, but to minister to others.

In The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), Christopher J. H. Wright writes:

Believe it or not, God did not invent the church to support the clergy. Rather, God gave pastors and teachers to the church in order to equip the saints. People don’t go to church on Sundays to support their pastors in their ministry. The pastor goes to church on Sunday to support the people in their ministry. And their ministry, the ministry that really counts as mission, is outside the walls of the church, in the world, being salt and light in the marketplace. (p. 272)

Pastoral ministry ought to be understood in light of their ministry. The phrase “to equip the saints for the work of ministry” can only be fulfilled in their ministry.

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[1] “The purpose of all spiritual gifts is the edifying of the whole body, and never the selfish enjoyment a person may have in exercising gift: Whoever leads the worship of God’s people, therefore, must not function according to his personal preferences but by what he knows will benefit all the members of the body.” Derek Prime and Alistair Begg, On Being a Pastor: Understanding Our Calling and Work (Chicago: Moody, 2004), p. 226.

Discipleship Letters 117-118

I wrote all my discipleship letters during my pastorate. I wrote one every Sunday. I started to pastor a church in July 01, 2005. I began to write my weekly discipleship letter on February 17, 2008. I don’t remember what I wrote. But when I read them again before posting them on my blog, I am taken aback by what I wrote during the period of my pastorate. All these letters function like a photo, capturing a precious moment in time. Discipleship Letters 117-118 are the last two letters that I wrote before I left the church. More or less, they captured my emotion, struggle, and thought at the moment.

Discipleship Letter 117                                              Dec. 19^th, 2010

“I shall always be grateful to the people at Augustana for putting up with me. God, I was young. There are some advantages to being young. But there is also an arrogance and self-righteousness that often comes with youth that I suspect clung to me. I was smart, but I had not yet learned to listen. I am not sure how any of us learns to listen, but I suspect for people like me, people who seem ‘in control,’ you simply have to be ‘stopped.’” [Stanley Hauerwas, Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), p. 94.].

In this congregation, I am considered as an “old” man. In ministry, I am just a young pastor. I ponder upon my personality and character, asking “Am I prideful and arrogant?” I personally don’t think so because I am highly aware of my own strengths and weaknesses. I do what I am good at; it’s necessary for me to do what I am not good at. If I know my weaknesses so well, what is the point to say that I am good, and I am better than you? Either I am foolish or my level of self-awareness is lower than what I’m aware of. Otherwise, there is no point.

But I guess my state of being young comes with pride, arrogance, and self-righteousness. These characters are just there. Because of what are out there within me, I am grateful to the people at this church, especially this congregation, for putting up with me. God, I am getting old.

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Discipleship Letter 118                                              Dec. 26^th, 2010

“Does the future belong to the young, or does the future make us young?...No one is too old to begin something new, even if we can never begin the same thing a second time…Creative powers are awakened at every age, when new possibilities emerge and if they are recognized as such. In this sense we are always standing at the beginning” [Jurgen Moltmann, In the End—The Beginning: The life of Hope (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004), p. 27.].

I could never begin to minister to a church as a new pastor graduated from seminary because I am no longer new. Like an Indian proverb says, “You can never enter the same river twice.” For sure, I will minister to another church in the future. But it won’t be the same: different locality, different people, and a different person. The end of this makes me recall the relations, for good and ill, in the past; the beginning of that awakens my dream of the future. Standing in the middle, I look backward with memory, and yet I look forward with hope as if I were standing at the beginning.

In the end of a contract is the beginning of a covenant. In the end of a wonderful pastor-parish relation is the beginning of our companionship. The former relation is maintained through weekly activities; the latter one is nurtured through spontaneous mutuality. In the End is the Beginning.

The future makes us young.

Discipleship Letters 115-116

Discipleship Letter 115                                              Dec. 05^th, 2010

“For me that first Vermont year was dark. A number of people assumed that when I left Exeter, I was also leaving the ministry, and what unsettled me about that was, on the one hand, that it was not true—I had every hope of being as much a minister in the books I wrote as in the sermons I preached and the classes I taught—and, on the other hand, that I would have to work very hard and carefully to make sure that it did not become true” [Frederick Buechner, Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation (New York: HarperCollins, 1983), pp. 79-80.].

Leaving a ministry almost sounds like leaving the ministry. The calling of God is still true; my understanding of that calling is still the same. However, leaving this pastoral context means that I need to be careful to govern that calling in my life, making sure that the calling will continue to become true.

It is always risky to leave one place and settle down at another: from the known to the unknown. For Abraham, due to God’s calling and the great famine, he moved from Haran to Canaan (Gen. 11:27-12:1-9) and from Canaan to Egypt (Gen. 12:10ff), respectively. An unknown place could be a place of temptation or a place of formation. Nevertheless, it is a common place for all of us. “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). From here to there, Abram was credited as righteousness because of his trust. “By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign land…” (Heb. 11:9) Abraham made God’s calling become true in his journey. 

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Discipleship Letter 116                                              Dec. 12^th, 2010

“What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2).

Teaching Paul: We need people like Paul who trained leaders like Timothy. “In the presence of many witnesses” implies that Paul nurtured Timothy in a community setting. A church needs Pauls to teach and to nurture. What do we need to be equipped in order to become Pauls?

Teachable Timothy: Timothy learned his Christian knowledge and ministry style from Paul. “What you have heard from me” implies that Timothy did not invent his faith but inherited it. What he needed to do with what he inherited was to teach faithful people these great truths in his own community setting.

Reliable People: Paul specifically mentioned “faithful people”, not just people. It implies that Timothy needed to be selective about picking faithful and trustworthy persons among people, for Timothy ought to invest his time wisely. Who is faithful, and who is not? We have to make our own choices. The sad fact is that we cannot just focus on people. Mass production does not mingle with discipleship. 

Capable Others: It is important to look for reliable people who look for capable others because we are dealing with the great truths of the gospel and protecting it from false teachings. Paul trained up the next generation of leaders. Timothy raised up the next one. Reliable people passed it on. The generation of capable others will continue to do the same until the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Every generational gap is filled by faithful discipling process.

Discipleship Letters 113-114

Discipleship Letter 113                                              Nov. 21^st, 2010

The veteran tempter, Screwtape, writes to his young nephew, Wormwood, about human beings:

“To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing…We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct” [C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters; with, Screwtape Proposes a Toast (New York: Touchstone, 1996), p. 41.].

The nature of human beings is to suck in; the essence of Christian servanthood is to give out. Christians are not suckers, but givers. This is a simple comment, but it applies to most of us. After we converted to Christ Jesus, we’ve still carried this self-absorbed nature and kept sucking in. Christians become dull when we don’t flow out after being filled. Christian servicing is anti-human nature. Giving out is the way to be filled. “My purpose is to give life in all its fullness” (Jn. 10:10b). This is Christ’s promise. Whenever there is no giving out in serving, we turn His fullness into our dullness. Christian dullness is natural, for giving out is unnatural. Redemption is an unnatural act, for it reverses the sin order. 

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Discipleship Letter 114                                              Nov. 28^th, 2010

“For Calvin, theological understanding and practical piety, truth, and usefulness are inseparable. Theology first of all deals with knowledge—knowledge of God and of ourselves—but there is no true knowledge where there is no true piety” [Joel R. Beeke, “Calvin’s Piety”, in The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin. Edited by Donald K. McKim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 125.].

The theme of Calvin’s theology is the knowledge of God and of ourselves. True knowledge of God shapes true godliness; true godliness propels us to pursue His knowledge. “…Train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Tim. 4:7-8). In commenting on 1 Tim. 4:7-8, Calvin said, “Godliness is the beginning, middle and end of Christian living” (p. 126). For Christians, godliness is practical piety.

In Greek the word “godliness” (eusebeia) was first used by the Greek poet, Homer, in about 1000 B.C. It was used to describe “a person who was faithful in fulfilling his duties to whatever Greek gods dominated the city in which he lived.” [See http://www.realtime.net/~wdoud/topics/godliness.html]

A godly person is not a sinless, religious freak. Rather, he fulfills his duties as if he owed to God, for God has done gracious works in his life.

Discipleship Letters 111-112

Discipleship Letter 111                                              Nov. 07^th, 2010

Albert B. Simpson, the founder of the C & MA, had three convictions in life: “To live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands” (1 Thess. 4:11); “to please Him always” (2 Cor. 5:9); “to preach the Good News where the name of Christ has never been heard” (Rom. 15:20).

“To live a quiet life” is not to detach from a community. Rather, we work hard in our own business within the community before minding the business of others. We ought not to inherit the American way of life, saying, “It’s not my business.” Every business happened in this body is our business. But the attitude toward our business is that we should mind our own business first. People see the work that we do and how we do it. We do it quietly, for Christian workers ought not to be showy.

“To live a quiet life” is not to let others do your works in community. There is a reason why Paul said, “Working with your hands.”

A.B. Simpson composed the following lyrics for his hymn, “Himself.”

“Once it was my working, His it hence shall be;

Once I tried to use Him, Now He uses me;

Once the power I wanted, Now the Mighty One;

Once for self I labored, Now for Him alone.”

We labor with our hands for Him alone.

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Discipleship Letter 112                                              Nov. 14^th, 2010

“The theological use of the term tradition signifies the means of passing on the message of the Scriptures from generation to generation. In this sense, every theologian and every believer stand within a theological tradition” [Richard Lints, The Fabric of Theology: A Prolegomenon to Evangelical Theology (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 1999), p. 83.].

God is concerned about passing on this tradition, which prevents the upcoming generation from degeneration. After Joshua died, it said, “After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals.” (Judges 2:7-11) In order to break the cycle of degeneration, passing on the tradition from one generation to another is indispensable.

Judges who were raised up by God served as tradition passers. In the approximate 400 years of the Judges period, the judges helped pass on the tradition until the emergence of the Davidic lineage (Ruth 4:18-22; see Matt. 1:1-6). In the faithless age, the faithful judges led God’s people to the Faithful One. 

Paul said to Timothy, “You have heard me teach many things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Teach these great truths to trustworthy people who are able to pass them on to others” (2 Tim. 2:2). It is our theological task to understand how to communicate the tradition and pass it on to Timothys in our time and space; Timothys, to trustworthy people; trustworthy people, to others.

Discipleship Letters 109-110

Discipleship Letter 109                                              Oct. 24^th, 2010

The tabernacle is the movable place of worship representing God’s presence with His people; the temple, the stationary place of worship representing God’s presence with His people. Jesus became flesh and “tabernacled” among us (Jn. 1:14). The tabernacle is replaced by the temple; the temple, by Jesus as the tabernacle; Jesus, by the Spirit as the temple of God’s people. In the Bible, we see that God is a mobile God. God said, “I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling” (2 Sam. 7:6).

God traveled along with Israel. In the desert, God’s pillar of cloud signified the presence of God in the place where there was no sign of progress. In the desert, did Israel progress or regress? Could God regress because of Israel’s regression? Perhaps when God determined to travel with Israel, His primary concern was not progression, but formation. It was in the desert they were instructed to build the tent of meeting. From there, God spoke to them (Lev. 1:1-2).

John Calvin viewed that the world is “the Promised Land—that is to say, the Promised Land can be found wherever the Word is preached.” In the desert, God is “a moveable pulpit.” “Where the Word of God is preached, heard and practiced, there is the Promised Land. There, in fact, is heaven on earth.” [Herman J. Selderhuis, John Calvin: A Pilgrim’s Life. Translated by Albert Gootjes (Downers Grove: IVP Academic; Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2009), p. 43.]

In the desert Israel learned to focus not on the journey, but the formation. Geographically, Israel might be at the point of stagnation. However, it was at this point of their journey they learned to listen to God’s Word and to turn the desert into the Promised Land.

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Discipleship Letter 110                                              Oct. 31^st, 2010

“We writers are not Nouns, he [C. S. Lewis] used to say. We are mere adjectives serving the great Noun of truth” [Philip Yancey, What Good is God? In Search of a Faith that Matters (New York: FaithWords, 2010), p. 100.].

Pastors are not Nouns. We are mere adjectives pointing the congregants to the great Noun named God. In pastoral works, it seems that I am always at the center of attention: I teach. I preach. I open and end with prayers. I hold the church keys. But I am a mere adjective. In other words, I am always on a periphery and yet with pastoral functions. I am on the side to protect the center from being invaded with false doctrinal teachings and relative moral standards. Once the center is invaded, the congregants become vague regarding with Christian belief and living. I am on the side to make sure that the congregants are in tune with the center. However, once again, I am not and should not be the center even though I want to.

Who wants to be the attachment instead of the centerpiece? It’s a hard fact we must swallow. It’s life. “Clowns are not in the center of the events. They appear between the great acts, fumble and fall, and make us smile again after the tensions created by the heroes we came to admire. The clowns don’t have it together, they do not succeed in what they try to do, they are awkward, out of balance, and left-handed, but…they are on our side. We respond to them not with admiration but with sympathy, not with amazement but with understanding, not with tension but with a smile…The clowns remind us with a tear and a smile that we share the same human weaknesses” [Henri Nouwen, Clowning in Rome: Reflections on Solitude, Celibacy, Prayer, and Contemplation (New York: Image, 1979), p. 3.].

Discipleship Letters 107-108

Discipleship Letter 107                                              Oct. 10^th, 2010

“The absence of Jesus Christ…is the context of Christian stewardship. In his death, Jesus absented himself from the community. This abnegation had startling results: it brought the Spirit into our midst in new and stirring ways, and it lured us into more authoritative roles in our shared life…Jesus’ absence invokes our stewardship” [Evelyn E. Whitehead and James D. Whitehead, Christian Adulthood: A Journey of Self-Discovery (Liguori: Liguori, 2005), pp. 52-53.]

The disciples picked up the responsibility of stewardship of the Gospel in the absence of Jesus. One’s absence may promote the presence of others, just like His absence led to the presence of the Spirit—another of the same kind.

I’ve worried about my absence for a period of time. Perhaps, one of the reasons why I’ve worried about it is because I think I am irreplaceable. My worry is being dealt with by two facts: Everybody can be replaced in the church, except Christ and His cross, and I do see your emerging presence in different ministerial areas. 

“When the Lord is present, we are all fittingly disciples. In the ‘generous absence’ of Jesus Christ a space was created, a leadership vacuum generated” (p. 52-53).

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Discipleship Letter 108                                              Oct. 17^th, 2010

Discipling relations are throughout the Bible. I wonder how much Joshua learned from Moses; Elisha, from Elijah; Peter, James, and John, from Jesus; Timothy, Titus, and Silas, from Paul. Throughout the years, I’ve been looking for Moses, Elijah, Jesus, and Paul so that I can grow with guidance, wisdom, and protection. However, at the same time, I have become someone’s “guidance”, “wisdom”, and “protection” without realizing it. It is through this experience I start to realize that we usually become what we want so that other people’s wants can be met.

The Great Tradition of the Church (e.g. 1 Cor. 15:3-4; 2 Tim. 2:2) ought to be passed on to one another through such a relationship. Jesus passed on the kingdom teaching and vision by spending time with the Twelve. He did preach to the crowd. But the Four Gospels show us that the Twelve was Jesus’ kingdom focus, for He wanted them to internalize the kingdom vision through discipling relationship so that the Twelve could carry out the kingdom works after he was gone. It’s a mustard seed strategy: from one to many.

This strategy seems to work and not to work at the same time because Christian faith is made up of the cross and the empty tomb: failure and future. We always deal with this paradox in our works. Jesus dealt with it. So do we. (Matt. 10:24)

Each of us must take the idea of passing on seriously.

Discipleship Letters 105-106

Discipleship Letter 105                                              Sept. 26^th, 2010

“Jesus’ desire for his followers is not one of leafy growth with little or no fruit. Like his first command to the man and woman in the Garden of Eden, ‘Be fruitful and multiply,’ God also wants us to be fruitful in our lives. But fruitfulness requires pruning, whether the pruning of the desire to eat of that original forbidden tree or the pruning of our contemporary desires to be like God” [Robert A. Fryling, The Leadership Ellipse: Shaping How We Lead by Who We Are (Downers Grove: IVP Books, 2010), p. 52.].

Perhaps, we need to be pruned from having to be right all the time, to be pruned from self-righteousness, to be pruned from our excuses for irresponsibility, to be pruned from being perfect, to be pruned from our inconsistency, to be pruned from making many empty promises, to be pruned from our ignorance of God’s Word, to be pruned from being indifferent to the church and to the world, to be pruned from only showing interest to one’s own family, to be pruned from maximizing one’s own resources and minimizing His given resources to others, etc…

Jesus uses the language of pruning in John’s gospel. In the Synoptic gospels, it’s the language of repentance. For Paul, he talks about putting off the old self. For the author of Hebrews, it’s discipline: “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons…For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (12:7-8, 11). Our heavenly Father is the God of pruning because we are His adopted children through Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:5).  

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Discipleship Letter 106                                              Oct. 03^rd, 2010

“Always it is God to whom we are paying, or trying to pay, attention. The contexts, though, vary: in prayer the context is myself; in Scripture it is the community of faith in history; in spiritual direction it is the person before me. God is the one to whom we are being primarily attentive in these contexts, but it is never God-in-himself; rather, it is God-in-relationship—with me, with his people, with this person” [Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), p. 4.].

God is never in Himself, for He is always in relationship with God the Son and God the Spirit. In creation, God is in relationship with the other two Godheads. In redemption, Jesus is in relationship with the other two Godheads. In the Age to Come, the Spirit is in relationship with the other two Godheads.

The contexts vary; God-in-relationship remains unchanged.

For pastoral work, preaching, teaching, and administration are big angles. Being in relationship with this or that person is a small angle. Big angles may be changed by contexts; small angle ought to be context-less. For pastoral work, I believe that big angles ought to be grounded in small angle, for the kingdom of God, which is like a mustard seed, is tiny and hidden.

To be with this or that person, it is a mustard-seed kind of work that foreshadows the nature of the kingdom of God in pastoral, ordinary relationship.

Discipleship Letters 103-104

Discipleship Letter 103                                              Sept. 12^th, 2010

“For Calvin, preaching was at the center of the work of a pastor and required that a minister be thoroughly educated in the biblical languages of Greek and Hebrew and in theology. Preaching is the way in which God speaks to his people and therefore must be done with the greatest care and faithfulness…Edification is central to proper preaching” [W. Robert Godfrey, John Calvin: Pilgrim and Pastor (Wheaton: Crossway, 2009), p. 67.].

Preaching is not the only element in worship service. But it’s central and essential because it directly expounds Scripture and applies it to the lives of the congregation. Modern media exists to entertain, not to edify; preaching is designed to edify, not to entertain. Preaching the Word of God not only comforts our brokenness, but also confronts our demons within. Edification means improvement of mind and character morally and intellectually. To preach is to edify. Thus, when we come to worship and listen to God’s Word being expounded and applied, we ought to be ready to be edified, to be improved, to be converted, to be conformed, and to be transformed. In other words, we are here to be changed. No one should be here to remain unchanged.

We are not here to speculate unprofitable curiosity of the Word of God. Rather, we are here to receive spiritual nourishment from the Word of God.

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Discipleship Letter 104                                              Sept. 19^th, 2010

“Many churches have not learned the lessons that most parents stumble on sooner or later. Churches imagine that the less they ask or expect of believers, the more popular they will become and the more contented the worshippers will be. The reverse is true. Those who ask little find that the little they ask is resented or resisted; those who ask much find that they are given much and strengthened by the giving” [David F. Wells, God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), p. 226.].

One of the problems of the modern church is that we are afraid of demanding Christians to live and give in sacrificial ways. We feel uncomfortable to make people uncomfortable. People feel uncomfortable because their comfort is shaken and challenged by biblical demands. Nowadays, we can pick and choose from different demands. We, as Christians, have no right to tell other Christians how to keep those demands and what it means to live sacrificially to God and to one another.

Christians are not strengthened by receiving. The work of the Spirit is resisted if we keep receiving. Christians stop growing when there is no sacrificial giving. Receiving worshippers are idolaters; giving sinners are worshippers.

Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

Discipleship Letters 101-102

Discipleship Letter 101                                              August 29^th, 2010

“His greatest quality as a commentator was his self-disciplined subordination to the text. The technical studies were merely a means to this end. But he did not simply listen to the voice of the Bible. As he listened to the context he questioned the immediate text; as he listened to the immediate context he questioned the context. It was by this continual process of hearing and of asking on the basis of what he had heard that Calvin was able to arrive in the remarkable way that he did at the ‘mind’ of the author” [T.H.L. Parker, John Calvin: A Biography (Louisville: Westminster, 2007), pp. 101-102.].

This is John Calvin’s conviction as a reformer. His self-disciplined subordination to the Scriptures is what we ought to pursue after. In modern church, God’s word is trivialized, marginalized, and decentralized. As a result, modern Christians are spiritually malnourished, morally degenerated, and mentally weakened.

Subordination to the Scriptures requires us to study God’s word diligently. We labor to get something out of it. I believe that if we make effort to know Him and His word, He and His word can be known, for He is not only a hidden God (Isa. 45:15), but also a revealed One (Jn. 1:18). “There are secret things that belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our descendants forever, so that we may obey these words of the law” (Deut. 29:29).

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Discipleship Letter 102                                              Sept. 05, 2010

I was reading The Message on the train. Eugene Peterson is a pastor. The main reason why he translated the Bible into down-to-earth language is not for his own profit, but for the profit of the congregation he pastured. Every pastor handles both worlds: the biblical world and the world of the congregation. The biblical world is not that difficult to understand in comparison with the world of the congregation. Biblical interpretation assists a pastor handle the text better. As times goes by, interpretive skill can be developed and sharpened.

Nevertheless, no present knowledge out there assists the pastor handle the context of the congregation. Only the pastor knows the congregation. No outside expert can give him insight. Big truth can be preached. But only small works, done in daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis, make a difference: these small works must be done in silence, discernment, wisdom, and hard working.

The more I pastor a church, the more I understand the Bible, or vice versa. On the train, I was reading Romans 8. It said, “All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within…That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging in us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy” (vv. 22-25).

Discipleship Letters 99-100

Discipleship Letter 99                                                August 15^th, 2010

In defense of himself before the young emperor, Charles V, in the early evening of April 18, 1521, Martin Luther said, “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason…I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience” [Mark A. Noll, Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity. 2^nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), p. 154.]. Luther’s conscience was captive to the Word of God.

Today not too many people embrace Scripture in such a high regard. All of us say that Scripture is God’s Word—divine revelation. But we don’t have such a high view of Scripture, and let the Scripture become our measuring rod. In this technological age, we know almost about everything. However, we almost know nothing about Scripture.

“You search the Scriptures because you believe they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!” (Jn. 5:39). We rarely search Scripture; we merely read it, skim through it, and take a look at it. We should search Scripture, and let Scripture searches our conscience. Our conscience says yes to one thing; God’s word says no to our conscience. We then learn to say no to that thing. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts” (Ps. 139:23). It has something to do with searching and knowing Scripture.

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Discipleship Letter 100                                              August 22^nd, 2010

In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin said, “The knowledge of God, as I understand it, is that by which we not only conceive that there is a God but also grasp what befits us and is proper to his glory…Indeed, we shall not say that, properly speaking, God is known where there is no religion or piety” (I. ii.1).

There is no knowledge of God if there is no piety of people. God can’t be known if He is not approached by people with reverence, honor, devotion, and delight. In Christian theology, the knowledge of God is not mere rational knowledge, but relational knowledge. He is someone whom we can know and relate to. He can be known because He reveals Himself to us through Christ; we can relate to Him due to the mediation and indwelling of the Spirit. He is the God who can freely demand on His people; we, as His people, have freedom to respond to His calls. But any response requires some sense of devotion and delight.

“For until men recognize that they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by his fatherly care, that he is the Author of their every good, that they should seek nothing beyond him—they will never yield him willing service” (I.ii.2).

In our age, we need Christians who have rational knowledge (e.g. biblical, theological, and cultural knowledge) as well as relational knowledge (e.g. personal piety, high moral standard, and willing service).

Discipleship Letters 97-98

Discipleship Letter 97                                                August 01^st, 2010

“It is no easy task to walk this earth and find peace. Inside of us, it would seem, something is at odds with the very rhythm of things and we are forever restless, dissatisfied, frustrated, and aching. We are so overcharged with desire that it is hard to come to simple rest. Desire is always stronger than satisfaction. Put more simply, there is within us a fundamental dis-ease…” [Ronald Rolheiser, Seeking Spirituality: Guidelines for a Christian Spirituality for the Twenty-First Century (London: Hodder & Stoughton), p. 3.].

What do we do with our unrest? Our longings? Our desire? The way we deal with our unrest is our Christian living. Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” We are not at ease because we have a dis-ease within us as creatures. Only the Creator can fulfill our total needs.

Christian growth has something to do with how we handle our longings. The practice of solitude creates space for us to detect the source of our unrest and for God to say to us, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10).

Don’t quench our longings by staying busy or ignorant, for our longings point us to the transcendent One and help us more attentive to the “still, small voice” of God (1 Kgs. 19:13).

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Discipleship Letter 98                                                August 08^th, 2010

This is what I usually feel in my pastorate:

“Most of our people have no idea what two or three new messages a week cost us in terms of intellectual and spiritual drain. Not to mention the depletions of family pain, church decisions, and imponderable theological and moral dilemmas. I, for one, am not a self-replenishing spring. My bucket leaks, even when it is not pouring. My spirit does not revive on the run. Without time of unhurried reading and reflection, beyond the press of sermon preparation, my soul shrinks, and the specter of ministerial death rises.”

And this is the vision that I’ve been pursuing in my pastorate:

“The great pressure on us today is to be productive managers. But the need of the church is for prayerful, spiritual poets…I mean pastors who feel the weight and glory of eternal reality even in the midst of a business meeting; who carry in their soul such a sense of God that they provide…a constant life-giving reorientation on the infinite God. For your own soul and for the life of your church, fight for time to feed your soul with rich reading. Almost all the forces in our culture are trivializing. If you want to stay alive to what is great and glorious and beautiful and eternal, you will have to fight for time to look through the eyes of others who were in touch with God.”

[Taken from John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2002), p. 66.]

Discipleship Letters 95-96

Discipleship Letter 95                                                July 18^th, 2010

“Pastoral care means much more than pastoral worries. It means a careful and critical contemplation of the human condition. Through this contemplation, pastors can take away the veil and make visible to themselves and to others the fact that good and evil are not just words but visible realities in the life of everyone” [Henri J. M. Nouwen, Creative Ministry (New York: Image, 2003), p. 70.]. 

To contemplate is to look beyond what appears on the surface, to unveil what is hidden, and to distinguish between right and wrong. For Christians, we don’t offer care without biblical conviction, for care without biblical conviction is moral corruption.

To contemplate is to look up first and then look around. Martin Luther said, “Here I stand.” He first looked up to see things from the perspective of God, he then looked around and stood firm in spite of the prevalence of cultural morality. There would have no Reformation if Martin Luther did not know what he stood for. If we don’t know what we stand for, not only do we deform ourselves, but also let the world deform us.

A spirit of relativism is the enemy of the church. We must not submit to it. “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or God? Or am I trying to please men? I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Gal. 1:10).

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Discipleship Letter 96                                                July 25^th, 2010

“We all need help to stay focused…We need a focus, a point of concentration. This is true in all faith traditions and spiritual practices: by focusing on one thing, we fight distractions. We do not fight distractions by pushing things away; rather, we fight them by focusing on one thing” [Henri Nouwen, Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit (New York: HarperOne, 2010), p. 27.].

Our lives are preoccupied by many things. I always ask myself, “What is the only necessary thing—the one thing—I must keep focused on?” I begin to realize that God doesn’t want me to do too many things. And the sad fact is that I can’t do too many things. Rather, God wants me and you to stay focused on one thing. “So let’s keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us. If any of you have something else in mind, something less than total commitment, God will clear your blurred vision—you’ll see it yet! Now that we’re on the right track, let’s stay on it” (Phil. 3:15-16 The Message).

What is the one thing we have to stay focused on? We have to fight against aimlessness, which, I think, is a cultural sin for this generation.

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12).

Discipleship Letters 93-94

Discipleship Letter 93                                                June 27^th, 2010

As Christ’s disciples, our goal is to be like Him. Christ-likeness is the goal of every follower of Jesus Christ. Whenever my goal is shifted from the vision of being like Christ to the ministry of Christ, I spend most of my time to think about ministry of Christ, but I miss the Christ of ministry. The love for Christ is lost. When love and vision are no longer there, nothing will be fruitful, for our lives are not fruitful. The fruit of the Spirit is love… When the love for Christ is substituted with the work for Christ, we’re mere workers. As a result, we fail to view the ministry of Christ and the Christ of ministry properly as God’s children.

Jesus prayed to the Father. I think about my prayer life. I study hard. I teach hard. I preach hard. But I don’t pray hard. Prayer is one of my weaknesses. Many times I remind myself of the fact that spiritual walk is sustained by prayer. As Clement of Alexandria said, “Prayer is keeping company with God.” I have problems of praying. Does it mean that I have problems to have Him as my companion? Theologically, I know that God walks alongside me. What about ethically? “Prayer is a matter of theology and ethics, both thinking and doing” [James Houston, The Prayer: Deepening Your Friendship with God (Colorado Springs: Victor, 2007), p. 10.].

Sometimes I can’t believe myself not praying much. And I can’t bear with the fact that I don’t enjoy praying. When a pastor doesn’t enjoy praying, the congregation can’t be in good shape.

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Discipleship Letter 94                                                July 11^th, 2010

If we only have position but no vision, what we do in ministry is a burden. What we do must be sustained by the vision that we have for God. In other words, we serve because of our vision of God. God calls everyone to serve. Because I am responsible for the congregation, I’d say “I want more people to serve.” Not only do I want more people to serve, but I also long for each of us to have a vision of God. “Be Thou My Vision” should be the dictum for all Christians. Serving without vision is a burden; vision without serving is a dream. 

Usually vision comes from a particular need in a community. God may show you in some areas that need to be improved. He lets you see it; He doesn’t expect others to do something about it. Rather, He expects you to labor with grace. In the midst of it, you are being transformed by this vision, for you work out your salvation that God has already worked in your life. A need turns into a vision that motivates you to make a difference. However, the difference that we “make” is like a mustard seed, for the kingdom of God is tiny and invisible. The parable of the mustard seed delays our instant gratification in the church. From a seed to a tree, mystery, faith, hope, and endurance are involved in between.

“This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how” (Mk. 4:26-27).

Discipleship Letters 91-92

Discipleship Letter 91                                                June 13^th, 2010

“Becoming a Christian is one thing; being a Christian is another” [John Stott, Basic Christianity (Downers Grove: IVP, 1971), p. 130.).

We become Christians through faith in Christ. We confess our sins. We believe in His death and resurrection. We declare Christ as our Savior and Lord. We have a right standing before God in Christ.

Being Christians is more complicated than becoming Christians. Becoming goes through an instant moment; being enters into a life-long journey. Becoming is entirely based on grace. Being is also grounded in grace, and yet human responsibility is in view.

John Stott said that the great responsibility of Christians is growth (p. 136). Christians’ great responsibility is not to evangelize, to tithe, to serve, to worship, to make disciples, etc…Rather, our great responsibility is to grow. When we grow, we will do all the things above. “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn. 3:2). “We shall be like him.” This is every Christian’s mission before we carry out His commission (Matt. 28:19-20). In this sense, our mission always precedes His commission.

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Discipleship Letter 92                                                June 20^th, 2010

The seriousness of sin has at least three consequences for humanity [See John Stott, Basic Christianity (Downers Grove: IVP, 1971), pp. 71-80.].

The first consequence is alienation from God. Knowing God is every human being’s greatest purpose. Due to the presence of sin, God cannot be known, for human mindset is distorted and corrupted. Our relationship with the heavenly Father is no longer there. The sonship is gone; the fellowship is broken. “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear” (Isa. 59:2).

The second consequence is bondage to self. “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Rom. 7:14-15). “Because sin is an inward corruption of human nature we are in bondage” (p. 76). God is dethroned; the Self is enthroned. The Self determines the whole course of life. Moral choices are made according to the Self. The Self is our internal golden calf.

The third consequence is conflict with others. “The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other” (Gal. 5:14-15). Sin reverses the order. Conflict is present; harmony is gone. 

“This exposure of our sin has only one purpose. It is to convince us of our need of Jesus Christ, and to prepare us for an understanding and an acceptance of what he offers” (p. 80).

Discipleship Letters 89-90

Discipleship Letter 89                                    May 30^th, 2010

“What many Christians are missing in their lives is a sense of vocation. The word itself means a call or summons, so that having a vocation means more than having a job. It means answering a specific call; it means doing what one is meant to do. In religious language, it means participating in the work of God, something that few lay people believe they do” [Barbara B. Taylor, The Preaching Life (Lanham: Cowley, 1993), p. 28.].

We are responsible for our living and dying. In between living and dying, we’re supposed to live with a sense of direction. It’s not easy and yet necessary to have a vocation in life. We exist to answer a call. We live to fulfill something that is bigger than ourselves. We are created to participate in what has been prepared.

Sometimes I think that we are not happy or satisfied because a sense of vocation is missing. Besides going to school, making money, getting married, having children, getting old, and being buried, is there a call we need to devote our time and energy to answer? Is there a better reason to live before dying? What are we capable of becoming in the work of God?

“For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14). We should anticipate what is to come. And we live in the present as if it had already come. To be capable of becoming, we need to be capable of anticipating. However, our anticipation is not without ground. “If the world in its present state, its subjection to evil and suffering, makes God questionable, conversely the God of resurrection, the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead, makes the present state of the world questionable. He opens it in hope to a different future…Faith in God is possible only as hope that the world can be different” [Richard Bauckham, The Theology of Jurgen Moltmann (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), p. 37.].

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Discipleship Letter 90                                    June 06^th, 2010

“Faith is a dialogic transaction that refuses closure, but that insists upon serious engagement that has commandment at its center” [Walter Brueggemann, An Unsettling God: The Heart of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), p. 9.].

We constantly engage with God. God never stops engaging with us. God is our dialogic God, for He converses with us through different traditions, like the priestly tradition (e.g. Leviticus), the prophetic tradition (e.g. Jeremiah), and the wisdom tradition (e.g. Job). He engages with us in various modes of communication because He knows that we need to be addressed by different ways of communication. God accommodates Himself so that He can have dialogue with us.

We are God’s dialogic partner because we are the people of the living Word. If the living Word is not the center of our thinking and living, we are no longer in dialogue. We just mutter to ourselves: it is only a monologue. There is no transformation in monologue, for we stick with our own voices that refuse to dialogue with the One who has something different to say to us. We stop growing and start the process of dying when we live in monologue. But we are God’s dialogic partner. As His dialogic partner, we pray, we study and examine, we praise, we complain, we lament, we meditate, we wait, we anticipate, etc… God talks to us in different communication modes in His Word. We can also communicate with Him in different styles.