Learning to be a Grateful Critic

“What do you think about the whole Mark Driscoll fiasco?” “Did you know Tim Keller believes in _____ ?” “What do you think about John Piper inviting ______ to his Conference?” Over the past decade, I’ve been asked these and other related questions too many times to recall. This is not always a bad thing. Caring about what happens in the wider church is something that we see played out on the pages of the New Testament; but, the way that people tend to line up on either side of these questions to either uncritically defend or hyper-critically condemn well-known pastors/theologians has become a matter of grave concern to me. In part, because I often find myself falling off into one or the other of these two pits. I rarely come across that wise someone who I would call “a grateful critic.”

On the one hand, it is not wrong to be critical. A love for biblical truth and practice demands that there should be a discerning and appropriately critical response to error in the writing, teaching and actions of public figures. We’re commanded to “test all things” (1 Thess. 5:21). On the other hand, there can be a hyper-critical, vitriolic and mean-spirited posture taken on in the name of discernment. I sometimes get the sense that hyper-critical people want to see men with public ministries fall. I know this is true because I know that I have had manifestations of this in the recesses of my own heart. In the same way, it is not wrong to be an appreciative fan of popular pastors/theologians; but, it is wrong to idolize them to the point of being unwilling to criticize them (or to receive criticisms of them from others). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve raised a much guarded criticism about a certain aspect of some well-known minister’s theology or methodology, only to have a disapproving glance or phrase shot back at me. I also know this because I have caught myself doing this very thing. Instead of adopting an exclusively critical or an entirely affirmative attitude towards our popular figures in Evangelical and Calvinistic circles, I would suggest that all of us learn to become grateful critics of popular pastors/theologians. Here is what I mean by “a grateful critic:”*

1. The Scriptures teach us to be thankful for men who have clay feet. We can honor them for all the gifts and graces of God that He uses in them for His glory. The Scriptures teach us to give thanks to God for faithful ministers of the Gospel and to give them the honor that is due unto them.  While condemning preacher idolatry and personality-driven factions in the church, the Apostle Paul speaks of “the brother who is famous among all the churches for his preaching of the gospel” (2 Cor. 8:18). Additionally, we are told that elders who rule well should be “considered worthy of double honor” (1 Tim. 5:17). While this probably refers to financial remuneration in the context, it surely includes expressing gratitude for their ministries. It’s right that we should be grateful for the ministries of men that God has raised up and used for the spiritual nourishment and well-being of our souls. We should be grateful to God, first and foremost, for raising them up. We should then be grateful to them for pouring out their lives in the service of Christ.

There can sometimes be a false humility that manifests itself under the guise that men are not to be honored because we are not to praise men. This is, of course, a functional impossibility. Everyone who I have ever heard make such an audacious claim still functionally honors those who think like them. The problem is that much of our admiration for men is idolatry and not biblical gratitude. We all tend to idolize others in whom we see things that we think we see in ourselves (or wish that we saw in ourselves). When they succeed in championing our causes we praise them; when they fail, we criticize them because they have let down something that we have idolized. All of us gives honor to others.

2. The Scriptures teach us to be critical of our heroes because they have clay feet. The Scriptures teach us to be biblically critical. Every faithful minister engaged in public ministry should want to be held to biblical standards and scrutiny by those by whom they are heard. The Apostle Paul put himself and his teaching under the scrutiny of men when he said, “Even if we, or an Angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel to you than that which you received let him be accursed.” The Holy Spirit commended the Bereans for searching the Scriptures after receiving the words of an Apostle (Acts 17:10-11). An uncritical approbation of ministers is never taught or modeled in Scripture. In fact, even among the Apostles this principle held true. When Peter denied the Gospel, the Apostle Paul withstood him to his face. This was not a hot-headed overreaction by Paul. It was the model response to a real perversion of the Gospel–even when it came from a dear brother who has been laboring faithfully with him in the Gospel. Sadly, this is something that we are increasingly losing sight of in our day because of “the cult of niceness.” Surely the Apostle Peter deserved honor–even though he is repeatedly shown to have had sinful weaknesses that are rightly criticized. The Scriptures air the dirty laundry of our heroes for this very reason. We must come to terms with this.

3. The Scriptures teach us that the criticism should fit the offense. We certainly learn this from “the-punishment-fits-the-crime” nature of the Mosaic Law; but we also see it in how Jesus confronted and corrected others. He didn’t treat His disciples with the severity with which he confronted the Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes and Lawyers in Israel. That being said, He didn’t gloss over the disciples erroneous attitudes and actions. In the same way, we learn from the Apostolic example the measure of criticism we should use in our approach to error in doctrine and practice among false teachers in the church and among brothers in the church. Distinguishing between the two categories is absolutely fundamental for us. We can err by being too severe in our criticism of a brother; and, we can err on being too soft in our criticism of a false teacher. We must labor to know the Scriptures well enough to distinguish between errors that must be met with severity and errors that can be handled with loving confrontation. This takes serious meditation on the examples set down for us in the Scriptures.

4. The Scriptures teach us to work through proper channels of criticism and to speak when necessary. This is not always easy to navigate. On the one hand, the Bible tells us to go privately to a brother if he has sinned against us personally (Matt. 18:15) and not to bring an accusation against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses (1 Tim. 5:19); but, on the other hand, it tell us that there are times for public confrontation and and that we are to rebuke those who persist in sin (whether moral or doctrinal) publicly so that they learn to fear (1 Tim. 5:20). One thing that we do need to learn is that public ministry is exactly that–public. This means that it open game for–and sometimes calls for–public criticism. After all, when ministers decide to pursue a public ministry they are saying ‘yes’ to all the vulnerability, accountability, criticism and scrutiny that comes with that. If it is true that every pastor is in a fish bowl, this is exponentially so with regard to public ministry. Even if Carl Trueman is right when he says, “Blessed are the celebrities, for they will be rigorously held to a much lower standard of behavior than the rest of us,” the reality is that those engaged in public ministry have their every word and action scrutinized. This is not altogether a bad thing; but, it does not mean that we always need to speak to every controversy in the public square. A very wise friend of mine always reminds me to ask myself, “Am I the person that NEEDS to write on or speak to this issue.” This has, many times, kept me from spending time, energy and reputation on things that I did not need to criticize openly.

5. The Scripture teach us to think the best of others until they give us reason not to think the best of them. I am a very skeptical person. I tend to think the worst of others–partly because I know my own corrupt heart, partly because I believe what the Bible says about the depravity of men and partly because I often relapse to a judgmental spirit. The Scriptures are clear that “it is the glory of man to overlook a transgression,” that “love covers a multitude of sin;” that “love keeps no record of wrongs;” and that “love believes all things.” Surely, if we apply this to anyone it ought to be to those men who have faithfully preached the Gospel “more or less purely” (WCF XXV.4) in the public square.

6. The Scriptures teach us to recognize our own proclivities and labor to grow biblically in areas of weakness. I have already told you that I am, by nature, a critical person. I fight against an unguarded use of criticism because of this. When I read the Proverbs, I find a sweet balancing of wise actions. If I tend to vent emotions, answer things before I hear the matter and dominate conversations then I need the to learn the wisdom of God in those Proverbs that speak against such folly. If I tend to retreat, avoid controversy and keep silent when I ought to speak, I need those Proverbs that speak to that manifestation of folly. We have to be honest about our own weaknesses. This only happens as we look into the mirror of God’s word and consider who we are in light of what He has said. This is the most important aspect of learning to be a grateful critic–yet it is also the most difficult. After all, no one said that being conformed to the image of Jesus would be easy. Thankfully God gives us grace to grow, repent and learn. May He do so for all of us as we labor to see His Kingdom come, side by side with those to whom He has given public ministries.

Learning from Lincoln’s Compelling Precision

On November 19, 1863 — 150 years ago — a tall, stressed out man from Illinois stood up to deliver 269 words that changed a country. It took him only two minutes.

Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States, gave his Gettysburg Address, one of the most legendary speeches in American history, undoubtedly spoken into the most tumultuous period of a then “new nation conceived in Liberty.”

The Civil War had stretched three long years, claiming thousands of lives from the North and South, including my own GGGG-grandfather, a member of the 14th Regiment North Carolina Volunteers. But in the summer of 1863, on the same ground on which Lincoln would give this speech, the bloodiest battle had been fought. Casualities at Gettysburg totaled over 57,000. And though it became a turning point in the war, death was everywhere. It stained the ground and filled the air up to the very moment Lincoln delivered his address. It would have been like smog, we can imagine, a weight of darkness so thick that you could cut it with a knife.

Which is exactly what Lincoln did with his words — his few words.

To be clear, there is nothing particularly Christian about this speech, or Lincoln himself, some historians argue. What makes the speech spectacular — and what is commendable to pastors and Christian leaders — is its precision. It is how he said so much in so little.

In fact, if you had been reading Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address instead of this blog post, you would be finished … right … about … now.

Even on the Web today, that length makes for short prose — and it’d be an unthinkable address to a nation in so few words. Can you imagine how it would have sounded 150 years ago when they were more accustomed to long-winded orations?

It wasn’t until later that historians and writers would commonly venerate this work by Lincoln. This was new wine in the mid-19th century. But the outstanding element to the address is not brevity for brevity’s sake, but what Lincoln said in the way he said it. He could have given a bad short speech, or a good long speech. What made the speech both good and short is that Lincoln said exactly what he meant to say and no more.

In Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President, Allen Guelzo recounts Joseph Gillespie’s observation of Lincoln’s way with words. Gillespie, one of Lincoln’s longtime friends, observed, “He despised everything like ornament or display and confined himself to a dry bold statement of his point and then worked away with sledge-hammer logic at making out his case” (83). Likewise, Isaac Arnold, a political ally of Lincoln, and his best early biographer, said of Lincoln’s days as a lawyer, “However complicated, he would disentangle it, and present the real issue in so simple and clear a way that all could understand” (83). If this were true in Lincoln’s days as a lawyer, when he had to make a case to a judge or jury, it was certainly true of Lincoln’s days as the President, when he had to convey a message to a nation.

This is where we can learn.

In our writing and speaking, we should be compelled by the best part of our content, which means it’s not about saying everything we can, but saying the most important thing we can as effectively as possible. And that means, typically, we’ll say it shorter, rather than longer. Christian proclamation, after all, is not merely about transferring information, but delivering a message.

The point of precision is to cut away the excess (hence the –cision). When we communicate, we should stop and ask ourselves: “Do I really mean that?” “Is the adjective overdone?” “Does that sentence contribute anything?”

Publishing fewer words typically takes more time, not less. But often, if God wills, it will have a greater impact, as with Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Learning from Myself Forty Years Later: Thoughts on the Republication of My Doctoral Dissertation

Crossway just republished my 1974 doctoral dissertation from the University of Munich. In re-reading parts of Love Your Enemies, I am struck at how solidifying those early days were.

For example, a significant focus of the dissertation was on the nature of motivation for loving our enemies and the role of God’s Spirit in bringing about enemy-love. In one section I asked, If we are born again by the Spirit, and led by the Spirit, and transformed by the Spirit, and sanctified by the Spirit, and empowered by the Spirit, and taught by the Spirit, what would be the necessity and function of human words, like “Love your enemies”?

If, as Paul says, we have been “God-taught to love one another” (1 Thessalonians 4:9), why do we need to hear Matthew or Luke or Paul or some contemporary teacher say into our physical ears, “Love your enemies”? I devote six pages to this issue (106–111). It is not small. It is a subset of issues about how God calls and shapes his people in this world and fits them for the next.

Here is the word picture I used to sum up my answer: “To put it in a picture: the command of enemy love, as part of the New Testament [ethical teaching] given ‘by grace’ and ‘through the Lord,’ is a seed sown by the Spirit’s gifted servants, in the ground of the renewed heart, which the Spirit himself has created, so that the fruit which springs up in the attitude and action of the Christian is indeed the fruit of the Spirit.” (110)

In other words, God solidified in me in those days the truth that the work of the Spirit in producing his fruit is not merely individual and not merely internal. It is both communal and external. The Spirit inspired written commands and promises. The Spirit raises up human speakers. The Spirit gives gifts of teaching and exhortation. The Spirit creates community. The Spirit providentially brings us into contact with these influences. The Spirit takes the humanly spoken and humanly explained command to love and presses it on our Spirit-humbled, Spirit-softened, and Spirit-readied heart. And the Spirit inclines that heart to joyfully pursue obedience, and be conformed to the beauty of Christ.

The result is “the fruit of the Spirit.” The ground where it grows may be the believing heart. But the seed and the conditions for its growth are much more than that heart.

I thank God for what he was doing in me in those days in Germany forty years ago (1971–1974). And, given how my 66-year-old mind forgets, I am glad I can still learn from what I wrote.

In between the scholarly jargon, maybe you could too.

Learning Fatherhood From the Father of Fatherhood

In Ephesians 3:14–15, Paul prays, "For this reason I bow my knees before the Father [pater], from whom every family [patria] in heaven and on earth is named." In the Greek it is easy to pick up on Paul’s pater/patria play on words. John Stott chose to translate this phrase as "the Father from whom all fatherhood is named." The ESV translation footnote makes a similar point.

God’s Fatherhood is the archetype of human fatherhood, a point made even more explicit in Hebrews 12:7–10. What that means for us fathers today is that we take our cues on fatherhood from the Father of Fatherhood, which is a great relief for any father today who was fathered by a sinful or absent father (which of course includes every one of us).

But what’s the point of this? In his most recent book, Douglas Wilson focuses one entire chapter (chapter 14) to a verse-by-verse stroll through the Gospel of John, highlighting every reference made to the Father/Son relationship. The book is worth its price for that chapter alone. At the end of his survey Wilson makes this summary observation:

The most obvious feature of the Father of Jesus Christ is His generosity. He is generous with His glory (John 1:14), with His tasks (John 5:18), with His protection (John 10:28–32), with His home (John 14:1–2), and with His joy (John 16:23–24). The Father gives (John 3:34–36). The Father gives His Son (John 3:16; 18:11); the Father gives His Spirit (John 14:16–17); the Father gives Himself (John 14:22–24).

Learning this about the Father who is a Spirit, who is intangible, should stir us deeply. He is seeking worshipers who will worship Him in Spirit and in truth — in short, who will become like He is. And what is He like? He is generous with everything. Is there anything He has that he has held back? And what should we — tangible fathers — be like? The question is terribly hard to answer, but not because it is difficult to understand. (Father Hunger, 204–205)

And that is a good challenge for me as a father because it makes me ask: from all the words that my children could use to describe me, would they choose generous? The answer spurs my attention to my Heavenly Father, the generous Father of all fatherhood.

 

Learning Contentment — A.W. Pink

 A.W. Pink (1886-1952)

A.W. Pink

Contentment…is the product of a heart resting in God. It is the soul’s enjoyment of that peace that passes all understanding. It is the outcome of my will being brought into subjection to the Divine will. It is the blessed assurance that God does all things well, and is, even now, making all things work together for my ultimate good. This experience has to be “learned” by “proving what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2). Contentment is possible only as we cultivate and maintain that attitude of accepting everything that enters our lives as coming from the hand of Him who is too wise to err, and too loving to cause one of His children a needless tear…..Real contentment is possible only by being much in the presence of the Lord Jesus. This comes out clearly in the verses that follow our opening text; “I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me” (Phil. 4:12-13). It is only by cultivating intimacy with that One who was never discontent that we shall be delivered from the sin of complaining. It is only by daily fellowship with Him who ever delighted in the Father’s will that we shall learn the secret of contentment. May both writer and reader so behold in the mirror of the Word the glory of the Lord that we shall be “changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18).

— from Comfort for Christians

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