This is a transcript of a sermon preached at Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church on August 19, 2007, as a farewell to a church member who was leaving to attend seminary. The sermons describes the qualifications and abilities necessary for ministers of the gospel in Reformed congregations--education, wisdom, godliness, and love.

An Educated Ministry

James 3:1: "My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment". Amen. May God add to His word richly today as we consider it.

In Matthew 11, Jesus says, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." I heard of a minister expositing that text, saying that if the egg is rotten, it is hard to cook and eat, and that God is a good egg and easy to eat. For those of you that did not catch it, the word in Matthew 11 is 'yoke', as in that which goes on the back of an ox--a crosspiece--not 'yolk', the little yellow thing in the egg that you have for breakfast.

In Matthew 6:22, the King James Version says, "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." An individual preached on that and said that if you really, really want something--like a new car, for example--then you should keep that as your whole focus and pray only for that and keep it in your mind all day so that 'your eye is single' and then you will get it. Now, the very next verse in the passage says that you cannot serve God and mammon. Obviously, the verse was very badly understood.

And one last example, someone was told that he may not drink apple juice because Eve ate of the apple, and so no to apple juice. Whether they can eat apples or not, I'm not sure.

These are examples of incompetence and ignorance, even within Christ's church. And the Reformed church believes in an educated ministry. And, as we send a man to seminary tomorrow and as we talk about that on a classic day--a historic day, really, in the history of our church--we are going to talk about the training of ministers so that we would have the right mindset.

And let me say, just to make sure I'm humble here with those examples of ministerial incompetence, that we probably all make those mistakes sometimes, and I'm especially nervous now, saying something in jest about what those other ministers have done, and then Trouwborst is going to say something really stupid. And I probably have in the past and you all go talk about it at lunchtime and so forth ... so, yes, we must be humble and we all struggle from time to time, but there is a difference between competence and incompetence.

What drove me, in part, to the ministry is seeing and feeling and being overwhelmed with the need, not necessarily for MORE ministers (there are plenty of ministers around), but for the need to have COMPETENT ministers. And I said to the elders that were over me, "Don't you dare allow me to get out into the pulpit and become a minister if I don't have the gifts and competence that are required!" And even now being a minister, in the last month, I asked the elders, "Look at the Book of Church Order. This is what is required of a minister. Is this what your minister is doing? Are there weaknesses? Are there areas where I am not fulfilling my responsibility?"

And as a means to become competent, we have an educated ministry. Hence, men go off to seminary for three or four years. In fact, in the history of the church, this is quite interesting. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, when there was much westward migration and there was a great need, and in fact, when there were revivals in western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and so forth, that there was a great need for ministers. And one of the real problems of the Reformed church or of the Presbyterian church, was that we could not train men quickly enough to send them out, and we lost a share of the market. I know that's not the way to say it, but we would not send men who were not properly trained to minister in that environment. By comparison, however, Presbyterian efforts paled beside the accomplishment of the Methodists and Baptists. Methodist circuit riders and Baptist farmer preachers fanned out throughout the South and the opening West in unprecedented numbers. By the 1830's, these groups had replaced the Congregationalists and Presbyterians as the largest denominations, not only in the South, but in the whole United States.

We [the Reformed churches] just said, "No, we can't send incompetent men out there." And, this is somewhat of a caricature, but for others, it was, "If you can read the Bible, then you can be a minister. And if you can't read, then do you know the alphabet? The alphabet will get you a long way here to minister. And if you don't know the alphabet, do you know the vowels?" Obviously, this is tongue-in-cheek, but it was just anyone who had such a desire to go, and that is not appropriate. And it is certainly not our history.

So three points today about ministry: (1) it is a high calling, (2) it is a calling that is to particular individuals, and (3) it is a gifted calling.

The first point, then, that it is a high calling ... Baxter said in the famous quote that when he preached, he preached as though he did not know if he was ever going to preach again, and he preached as dying man to dying men. Last week on Sunday, I had an opportunity to go to Ellis Hospital, and I spoke to a man who has terminal cancer. He will die shortly. Does he know the Lord? Does he not know the Lord? Well, that's debatable and certainly we want more confidence than we have now. What do you say to him? What is appropriate to say to him? What do you say to a family? What do you say to an eight-year-old son who has lost his father and you have to tell him that he will never see his father again on this earth? What do you tell a wife who is in the hospital, knowing that her husband will not make it through the night, knowing that her husband will die in his thirties and their children will grow up without a father? What do you tell them? What do you tell them when they ask, "Why? Why is it that way?"

It is a high calling to be a minister because ministers handle the very Word of God, which is sharper than any double-edged sword. And if it is sharper than any double-edged sword, it means that it can cut both ways, and it can be damaging as well as helpful and encouraging. And this is why we read from I Timothy 1 today. We read that there were those who were teaching fables and stupid things that merely confused the people of God. Paul tells Titus (Titus 1:11) that some are teaching so that whole households are confused and they don't know what to make of the gospel because people are misleading them.

And we've spoken of this as elders--the authority and the influence of ministers. Take, for instance, the liberal Presbyterian churches today. These people are being misled by false shepherds. Many of these people--not all of these people--but many of these people, if they had shepherds who would tell them the truth and would teach them day after day, week after week, year after year, they would not be falling into the same problems that they have today. They would not be debating homosexuality and whether or not they should be performing homosexual marriages. The point is that when God created us, He created us to follow, that you have leaders and you have followers. And when you have false leaders, they lead people astray, even people who are relatively innocent (and we could qualify that 101 ways, but you understand what I am saying).

Ministers have much responsibility, hence they need much maturity. To be mature is to assume and to properly carry out responsibility. I heard of an account this week of a child who had his own library card, so that the child would be responsible to make sure that the books are kept in the right place and returned on time. And the child said, "I don't like having this library card because now I'm responsible to bring the books back, and my parents are threatening me with fines if I don't do that. I want them to take care of it all." And that's how we are. We are naturally immature. We don't want responsibility. And a minister is one that assumes responsibility, and in a real sense, more than anyone else. Chris, you will have the obligation for the souls of the flock that are under you. There is no higher calling, there is no greater calling, there is no job that has more responsibility, that puts more on your shoulders than the calling of a minister of the gospel. We love our doctors, we love our lawyers, we love our engineers, and the like, and we have a very high view of God's calling in every aspect of life, in every particular calling and job. To be a garbage man unto the glory of God is a high calling. But it is mistake to simply say that these are all equal in every sense. The minister of the gospel has a responsibility for the very souls of those under him. Life and death--eternity is on the line.

The minister is called the 'watchman', and Ezekiel, in a very fearful way, says that if you don't tell the people what they need to hear, the blood is going to be on your hands. Paul says in Acts 20, "I did not hesitate to proclaim to you the whole counsel of God so that I am innocent before you".

So (1) just to note that it is a high calling, and now (2) to say that it is a select calling, or, to put it another way, not everyone is called at least in this specific sense to be a minister of the gospel and ordained as such. It is a select calling.

Some people accused Spurgeon--he had a seminary or a school of sorts--and they accused him of basically manufacturing preachers just left and right. And he said, "No, that's actually not accurate, that's not fair to say. I am a parson-killer", because when people would come to his school, he would tell some of them, "You are not qualified to become a minister. Go home and do something else."

So James 3 says, "My brothers, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment". Not everyone should be a teacher! And hence, the accountability given there, that there will be a stricter judgment, and whatever that means, it is high and holy and serious, so that there is an accountability if one leads another astray. Jesus says in Matthew 18 that, if you cause one of these little ones to sin, it would be better to have a millstone hung around your neck. That's not exactly positive preaching and encouragement, but He is warning, and all of us that are in authority, even fathers and mothers, should be mindful of that.

Not everyone is called. It is not an easy job. Ken Sandy writes in Strike the Shepherd: Losing Pastors in the Church that 23% of current pastors in the United States have been fired or forced to resign in the past, 45% of the pastors who were fired in one denomination left the ministry altogether, 34% of pastors presently serve congregations that forced their previous pastor to resign. The average pastoral career lasts 14 years, less than half of what it was not that long ago. And finally, 1,500 pastors leave their assignments every month in the United States because of conflict, burn-out, or moral failure.

So even Moses (and he is not the only one in the Bible) says, "I am not gifted. I don't want this. Please, I do not want to be a leader in Israel. Give it to someone else. Let Aaron do it, let anyone else assume the responsibility. I don't want to do it." A confession--anyone who has been a minister for any period of time at one point at 11:00 at night says to himself, "How did I get myself into this? What am I doing? This is insanity! This is the craziest job! What am I doing here? Where are the applications for the garbage men for the city? Give me the application, let me go online right now and fill it out!" So that we are not egalitarians, in that not everyone is equally called or equally gifted, at least in this sense.

And not everyone is called who personally thinks that he is called. And so the third point here is that it is a gifted calling. And so the distinguishing mark for those who have been called is competency. The distinguishing mark is NOT seminary. The distinguishing mark is NOT that you put three years in at an institution of higher education. The distinguishing mark is NOT that you are one of the boys. It is not that you went to the favorite institution. It is not that you are nice, it's not that you smile a lot, it's not that you are 'our boy' ... I began this sermon by saying that we were going to be talking about the distinctives of the Reformed faith and that we believe in an educated ministry, but that's not really the right way to say it. It's not an educated ministry, but a COMPETENT ministry. I don't care how you get there. I don't care if you read your Bible in a corner and learn the Bible, but you have to know your Bible and you have to be competent! And is competency as judged by the church of Jesus Christ.

This illustration has probably been heard by many of you before:

There was a man who farmed corn. He was out in his field one day and looked up and saw the clouds floating by in the shapes of G, P, and C. He was immediately overtaken with joy and he ran into his house and said to his wife, "I believe that the Lord desires me to preach!"

"Why so?" asked the wife.

"Because I saw in the sky the letters G, P, C in the sky: Go Preach Christ!"

The wife grinned. "How do you know that God was not telling you to Go Pick Corn?"

Dabney says, "What, then, is the call to the gospel ministry? Before the answer to this question is attempted, let us protest against the vague, mystical and fanatical notions of a call which prevail in many minds, fostered, we are sorry to admit, by not a little un-scriptural teaching from Christians. People seem to imagine that some voice is to be heard, or some impression to be felt, or some impulse to be given to the soul, they hardly know what or whence, which is to force the man into the ministry without rational or scriptural deliberation."

It is not just a feeling. Now let me just be clear here, and Chris needs to know this for sure, that, yes, you had better have an internal call. You had better know that this is where God wants you. Everybody is happy today and we are going to have a cake for you, and isn't this great? But two years from now, when you are studying your Hebrew and you are mad at a professor and how do you get all this work done, or ten years from now when everyone is mad at you and you have a church conflict ... you had better know that God's hand is upon you or you will never get through those times.

Yet it is the church's job to so determine your qualifications and your gifts. So in our Book of Church order, it talks about the responsibilities of a minister. "It is his charge to feed and tend the flock as Christ's minister and with the other elders to lead them in all the service of Christ. It is his task to conduct the public worship of God; to pray for and with Christ's flock as the mouth of the people unto God; to feed the flock by the public reading and preaching of the Word of God, according to which he is to teach, convince, reprove, exhort, comfort, and evangelize, expounding and applying the truth of Scripture with ministerial authority, as a diligent workman approved by God; to administer the sacraments; to bless the people from God; to shepherd the flock and minister the Word according to the particular needs of groups, families, and individuals in the congregation, catechizing by teaching plainly the first principles of the oracles of God to the baptized youth and to adults who are yet babes in Christ, visiting in the homes of the people, instructing and counseling individuals, and training them to be faithful servants of Christ; to minister to the poor, the sick, the afflicted, and the dying; and to make known the gospel to the lost."

I get tired just reading that. And then think about doing it. And you really need to be a jack-of-all-trades, in that a minister needs to have gifts that are not just so narrowly defined, but needs to be able to get along with people, to see the big picture, and we could go on and on.

And our Book of Church Order talks about ordination and an ordination exam--which is years down the road for you yet, Chris--but there is a written and oral testimony as to your Christian faith and your knowledge of the Bible. You have to know the Bible. And I've said this before that it is embarrassing the extent to which ministerial candidates do not know the Word of God! I mentioned this not long ago after Presbytery that we have a man in presbytery who asked to come under care who has not even read the Bible through once! That's an embarrassment to Christ's church! (Before our minds get carried away here--he will have read it through numerous times and know it if he will be ordained in this presbytery.)

From the Book of Church Order: "Trials for ordination shall consist of the following: (1) the evaluation of written and oral testimonials as to the candidate's satisfactory exercise of the gifts for the gospel ministry; (2) an examination as to the candidate's Christian faith and life; as to his knowledge of the Bible, theology, apologetics, ecclesiastical history, the Greek and Hebrew languages, and such other branches of learning as to the presbytery may appear requisite; and as to his knowledge of the confession, government, discipline, and worship of the Church; this examination may include such written discourses, founded on the Word of God, as shall seem proper to the presbytery."

And I'll just say this--no one would dare to have a doctor operate on you if the doctor did not have plenty of education and experience AND TESTING. When I became a CPA, I sat through a 17 hour exam! Seventeen hours! That's not to brag, that's just to say that if pagans can have such standards for their fields, so much more so should the church of Christ have extensive exams that aren't just rubber stamps that take twenty minutes!

Ordination is the gate by which the church stands to protect the people of God. And the church needs to be willing to say, "No, you do not have these gifts"--as much as we want to encourage people, as much as nobody has it all worked out, as much as you know yourself that your own pastor has a few deficiencies and weaknesses.

So it is a high calling, it is a particular calling, and it is a calling according to gifts.

Let me make four quick points, Chris, to you and to your wife. The first is to know your duty and where you are and what you are doing over the next three years, Lord willing. In Religious Life of Theological Students, Warfield says about Hodge (who is speaking of a man called Philip Lindsay), "He told our class that we would find that one of the best preparations for death was a thorough knowledge of Greek grammar. This, said Dr. Hodge, was his way of telling us that we ought to do our duty. If this work happens to be studying, then his religious life depends on nothing more fundamentally than on just studying. You may think of your studies what you please. You may consider that you are singing precisely of them when you sing of 'e’en servile labors,' and of 'the meanest work'. But you must faithfully give yourselves to your studies, if you wish to be religious men. No religious character can be built up on the foundation of neglected duty."

So (1) that you would be committed to this your duty in studying and (2) that you would be committed to godliness.

Paul says that you are to watch your life and doctrine well. For those that read the qualifications of ministers in the Bible (for example, I Timothy 3), a majority of the qualifications have to do with godliness. Yes, apt to teach, but also that you would be a godly man, that your household would be in order. It's not necessarily that you would know every detail of church history, but first and primarily, that you would be godly--which is not so easy to do. Baxter says, "The tempter shall make his first and sharpest onset on you (that is the minister). If you be leaders against him, he will spare you no further than God restrains him."

Understand what Baxter is saying here is that, if I am the Devil (and maybe that's not a good analogy to make), then who do I want to go after? I want to go after the leader.

I read quotes (I forget where I read it this week) about how Hitler decimated the army, how he decimated the leaders that would be opposed to him, because that was the way to get his will. So this is why you will struggle in your own life and in sanctification, because the Devil himself wants to undercut you.

So (2) a commitment to godliness, and (3) that you would be wise.

We do a great job of saying, "Learn the confession, learn these details, learn these facts about history", but you must learn how to think, to learn how to apply the Bible in real life. And it's always different than the book, than the case that you've had before. What does wisdom dictate? And so you must learn to ask the question, "How do you come to these conclusions, Professor? Why is it that you say this? Why does this verse take priority over that verse? Help me learn to think! Qualify me so that I may know the Word of God and apply it in real life!"

And finally, that you would have a pastoral heart.

In this sense, it does not matter how much theology you have, it does not matter how much Bible you learn, it does not matter if you are the Answer Man, but you must have have a pastoral heart that loves people and loves people in their weaknesses, who loves people when they resist you, who is willing to minister to those who are resistant to the truth, weak, indifferent, even those who even hate you--and you must love them. So that you are a servant, a servant who has given himself over for the gospel.

Paul talks in I Corinthians 12 about all the gifts, but then he says, "Let me show you a more excellent way, and that way is love". The context in I Corinthians 13 is not marriage, but it is ministry. And that you would not use a whip, that you would not be harsh to them, but that you would use your authority to build up and not to tear down.

And how about you, congregation? What are we asking of you? Well, first, just simply that you would have a high view of a ministerial calling, that you would have a high view of ministers, that you would be encouraging Chris and Alison. And that you would all pray for them--and not just today when it is easy, but three weeks from now, two years from now, that you would be mindful and looking to minister to them. And remember that they are still members of this congregation that need to be encouraged, that need a phone call, an email, and our oversight and encouragement.

I'll end with this thought. If I've depressed you, that was not my desire in talking about the high standards. But you need to know, Chris and Alison, that it is the Lord that provides, the Lord that gives gifts.

And if you asked me how I could handle the next ten years of ministry, I'd say, "I don't know". But it is no different than the counsel that I try to give that God gives enough grace for today, and that you need to be seeking the Lord daily. Tomorrow will have enough trouble of its own. You have to be confident that God Himself provides, that God Himself will give you all that you need, and you need to see your utter reliance on God. Study hard, yes, and use the means that God has given you, but rely on God every day.

Ministry, in any sense--parenting, reaching out--it brings you to your knees. And if you want to be a minister, it brings you to your knees. So, be crying out to God, and with confidence, knowing that God Himself does provide--that is what He promises to give us teachers and pastors today. And that is our confidence and that is our glory. And to that we say, "Amen".