Quotable: Dumber Than Demons

When radicals deny Christ’s deity they show less insight than the demons, for the latter are constantly acknowledging it.

— William Hendriksen, Mark, p. 66.

Quotable: The Power of Oratory

“What would have happened to Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Deam’ speech if he made it a PowerPoint presentation or decided just to send out flyers?”

— Will Mancini, Church Unique, p. 170.

Quotable: Stetzer on Clergification

Clergification is “the idea that is very prevalent in the church that there is a certain class of people, a certain hierarchy, a priesthood if you will that does the work of the ministry and the job of the normal people is to pay, pray, and get out of the way.”

“Most churches look more like pre-Reformation Catholic churches than they do like churches that have an empowered priesthood of the believers.”

“It’s remarkable to me that so many churches look like pre-Reformation Catholic churches where there’s a priestly class and then there’s a people who is unengaged in mission and ministry.”

“We are teaching people that they need us [pastors] more than God wants them to believe they need us.”

“Somehow we have to stop letting them believe—and maybe us acting as if we believe—that our role is to do the work of the ministry.”

“All God’s people are called to ministry.”

“When we do for people what God calls them to do, everybody gets hurt and the mission of God gets hindered.”

“We are going to have to break the cycle of codependence where we’re the ones who do it and they’re the ones who watch”

From the Exchange beginning about 21:00, lasting about ten minutes.

Dever on Pastoral Ministry

“If you’re not willing to be disliked, you shouldn’t be in the ministry.”

This and tons of other good stuff from Mark Dever when he preaches about the four P’s of evangelical (meaning “gospel”) ministry.

1. Preaching
2. Prayer
3. Personal discipling relationships.
4. Patience

It’s worth your time (as it usually is when Dever speaks about the church or pastoral ministry). You can get it here.

In the Diner

“Pastor, you know I smoke. You gotta pray for me.”

This was said to me by someone heading out the door, with a cigarette in hand. (By the way, if you are around me after I have been in the diner, be reminded that the smell of cigarette smoke emanating from me is the price I pay [along with $4 for “the usual"—three eggs over easy with white toast, strawberry jam, coffee, and tip] to get these insights from the diner. It is not my habit.)

First, I think, why would that even be brought up? No one say, “Pastor you know I wear red shirts. You gotta pray for me,” or “Pastor you know I drink cold water when it’s hot outside. You gotta pray for me.”

But this is different. There is something that tells us that something is wrong that prayer is needed for. 

Secondly, my thoughts are drawn to Ed Welch’s excellent book, Addictions: Banquet in a Grave. This is the most significant, clear, and theological treatment I am familiar with on the topic of addictions. It is a must have book.

Welch argues that addictions are worship disorders.

So how do we pray for addicts? And how do addicts pray for themselves?

Praying for freedom from addiction is too small a prayer.

We need to be praying for a new kind of worship, a worship that will have only one Master—Jesus; a worship that will bow to no other.

Yes, addictions are real. They are sometimes physiological (in the body) and sometimes psychological (in the mind), or sometimes both. And sometimes we cannot be sure which it is.

Yes, addictions are hard habits to break. That’s why people don’t break them.

The truth is that addictions can be broken a number of ways, all involving a transition of worship, but not all involving the Creator God and Savior of the universe.

Remember, we are all worshippers by nature. Romans 1:23 teaches us that people who don’t worship God haven’t stopped worshipping. They have actually exchanged the worship of God for the worship of something else—they have exchanged the Creator for a created thing.

When a person worships their family more than their use of alcohol which is destroying their family, they will find a way to stop drinking … until the time that they being to worship alcohol  more than their family.

When a person worships sobriety more than drunkenness, they will find a way to stay sober.

When a person worships saving money more than spending it, they will find a way to quit spending $7.50 a pack for cigarettes.

They are not sick. They are doing what worshippers do.

And that’s why I think the sickness model of addictions is inherently hopeless. It wrongly diagnoses the problem and puts the hope for fixing it in the wrong place.

Only a worship model can bring true hope.