Celebrity Pastors and Holy Heroes

Tony Reinke John Piper

A transcribed excerpt from Friday morning’s DG staff devotional with John Piper:

Philippians 3:17 shows us four generations of imitation: you ➔ those ➔ us ➔ Christ. So that clearly implies God wants us to find good examples, to watch them, and to be encouraged and inspired.

Yes, it can be sinful and dangerous. And it can be wonderful.

Anytime a preacher is a draw, two things are happening.

(1) There is a carnal attraction to Apollos-like eloquence, or logic, or turns of phrase, or personality that people like. And they don’t go through it. They don’t go through it to God. They don’t go through it to Jesus. They don’t through it to the Holy Spirit, to be broken by him and have their lives turned upside down, so if that pastor died they would have Jesus, and he would mean everything to them. No. They just stop with the preacher. That’s carnal.

(2) But there are other people. A word lands, for whatever reason, that person meets Jesus, and God condescends to make that sermon on that day a miracle. The sinner in the pulpit has miraculously been made the instrument of grace (1 Cor. 3:6-7).

And there is no way to weed that out ahead of time. You cannot put a sign on the church door: “All of you who are coming here for carnal reasons, stay away. All of you who are coming here because you meet God here, come.”

Therefore, it behooves elders watch that leader, rebuke, counsel, and correct, hedge in, and protect that leader from himself. And it behooves the pastor to be reminded that the Day will disclose his work (1 Cor. 3:13).

But don’t be afraid to have heroes. I think that’s why Hebrews 11 is in the Bible. …

Primitive Christian Worship

Tony Reinke Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, Local church, Worship


Although I disagree with a few strands of his overall theology, I appreciate what Ethelbert Stauffer writes about corporate Christian worship in his New Testament Theology [(Macmillan: 1955), 201]:

The worship of the primitive Church at every point took it back to the coming of Christ, the Christ-event. So it is the good news of the gospel that constitutes the real centre of her services of worship. The Word of Jesus Christ must have its course, said Luther, in the German Mass. It must dwell amongst us richly, declared Paul (Col. 3.16; cf. 1.27). So it came about that the prophecies and histories of the OT were read and expounded; the sermon set forth the mighty acts of God in the fulness of time (Acts 13.15 ff.); the correspondence of the apostles, new and old alike, the epistles, which are very much like sermons when read to the congregations, these were read and so, with their message, their thanksgivings and doxologies, helped to bring out the full meaning of Christian worship.

But Christian worship was ‘also’, most certainly, a service to the world. Yet the primitive Church did not serve mankind in solemn rites and cultic practices, in pious instructions and edifying spirituality. Christian worship rooted men out of their self-centred individualism into an extra nos — away from all that is subjective — up to that which is simply objective. This was its service to humanity. It summoned the nations to worship the crucified.

Gilgamesh, Eden, and Political Sex Ethics

Tony Reinke Politics

Peter Leithart, Touchstone Magazine (March/April 2012, page 7):

When the people of ancient Uruk complained about Gilgamesh’s oppression, the gods fashioned Enkidu, a wild man every whit equal to Gilgamesh. First rivals, then allies, the two heroes embark on a series of adventures and battles.

Goddesses appear in the epic of Gilgamesh, and Enkidu is civilized by a sexual encounter with a prostitute. Having fulfilled her function, she disappears from the story, and women elsewhere play minor roles as willing or unwilling sexual partners. Gilgamesh’s companion-in-arms has to be male because, for ancient Mesopotamians, ruling the world is a man’s work.

The Bible presents a radically different picture. When Adam needs a helper in his work of caring for the garden and ruling the creatures of land and sea, God constructs a woman. Sexuality is caught up in the public and political project of subduing creation. So is family life. So are women.

These ancients texts remain deeply relevant. Europeans mock Americans for our obsession with political sex scandals. We should grow up, they tell us, and let sex stay in the boudoir where it belongs. Prudery and prurience, sometimes both together, play their roles in American sexual mores. But our willingness to judge a man’s suitability for public office by his sexual faithfulness is also a residue of biblical consciousness, and a sign of social health.

The Colossal Vision

Tony Reinke Creation, Humility

G. K. Chesterton, in his defense of humility, concludes this way:

Humility is the luxurious art of reducing ourselves to a point, not to a small thing or a large one, but to a thing with no size at all, so that to it all the cosmic things are what they really are—of immeasurable stature.

That the trees are high and the grasses short is a mere accident of our own foot-rules and our own stature. But to the spirit which has stripped off for a moment its own idle temporal standards the grass is an everlasting forest, with dragons for denizens; the stones of the road are as incredible mountains piled one upon the other; the dandelions are like gigantic bonfires illuminating the lands around; and the heath-bells on their stalks are like planets hung in heaven each higher than the other.

Between one stake of a paling and another there are new and terrible landscapes; here a desert, with nothing but one misshapen rock; here a miraculous forest, of which all the trees flower above the head with the hues of sunset; here, again, a sea full of monsters that Dante would not have dared to dream. These are the visions of him who, like the child in the fairy tales, is not afraid to become small.

Meanwhile, the sage whose faith is in magnitude and ambition is, like a giant, becoming larger and larger, which only means that the stars are becoming smaller and smaller. World after world falls from him into insignificance; the whole passionate and intricate life of common things becomes as lost to him as is the life of the infusoria [minute aquatic creatures] to a man without a microscope. He rises always through desolate eternities. He may find new systems, and forget them; he may discover fresh universes, and learn to despise them. But the towering and tropical vision of things as they really are—the gigantic daisies, the heaven-consuming dandelions, the great Odyssey of strange-coloured oceans and strange-shaped trees, of dust like the wreck of temples, and thistledown like the ruin of stars—all this colossal vision shall perish with the last of the humble.

War and Peace

Tony Reinke Sanctification

Tobias Crisp, the best named Puritan preacher of all-time, writes [The Complete Works of Tobias Crisp (London: 1832), 1:12–14]:

It is neither the tyranny, nor the troublesomeness of sin in a believer, that doth eclipse the beauty of Christ, or the favor of God to the soul. Our standing is not founded upon the subduing of our sins, but upon that foundation that never fails; and that is Christ himself, upon his faithfulness and truth. … Though there be ebbings and flowings of the outward man, nay, of the inward man, in the business of sanctification; yet this is certainly true, “That believers are kept by the mighty power of God, through faith, unto salvation.” They are kept in holiness, sincerity, simplicity of heart; but all this hath nothing to do with the peace of his soul, and the salvation and justification thereof: Christ is he that justifies the ungodly; Christ is he that is the peace-maker; and as Christ is the peace-maker, so all this peace depends upon Christ alone. Beloved, if you will fetch your peace from any thing in the world but Christ, you will fetch it from where it is not. …

While your acts, in respect of filthiness, proclaim nothing but war, Christ alone, and his blood, proclaim nothing but peace. Therefore, I give this hint by the way, when I speak of the power of Christ subduing sin; because, from the power of it in men, they are apt to think their peace depends upon this subduing of sin. If their sins be subdued, then they may have peace; and if they cannot be subdued, then no peace: fetch peace where it is to be had; let alone subduing sin for peace; let Christ have that which is his due; it is he alone that speaks peace.

Obey Your Pastors and Submit to Them

Tony Reinke Authority, Leadership, Pastoral Ministry, Preaching, spurgeon, Submission

Few passages are more commonly misread, or simply avoided, than Hebrew 13:17:

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.

It shouldn’t surprise us that this passage often goes avoided. This is bound to happen in a culture where postmodernism rejects all claims of authority and where examples of abuses of authority are not hard to find in the news.

To make matters worse, a surface reading of this passage seems to sanction some form of authoritarianism, an unqualified obedience and submission to pastors in all matters. But that’s not the message of this passage, as we will see.

What follows are a few important thoughts on this passage, beginning with a closer look at the idea of “obeying.”

Here is how W. E. Vine defines the Greek word “obey” (πείθο):

In Hebrews 13:17, believers are commanded to obey their leaders. The word used is peithō which has the usual meaning of “convince” or “persuade.” The “obedience” suggested is not by submission to authority, but resulting from persuasion. Peithō and pisteuō, “to trust,” are closely related etymologically; the difference in meaning is that the former implies the obedience that is produced by the latter.

Peithō, “to persuade, to win over,” in the passive and middle voices, “to be persuaded, to listen to, to obey,” is so used with this meaning, in the middle voice, e.g., in Acts 5:36-37 (in v. 40, passive voice, “they agreed”); Rom. 2:8; Gal. 5:7; Heb. 13:17; Jas. 3:3.

The “obedience” suggested is not by submission to authority, but resulting from persuasion. Peithō and pisteuo, ‘to trust,’ are closely related etymologically; the difference in meaning is that the former implies the obedience that is produced by the latter.

In other words, when “one allows oneself to be convinced by someone: one follows and obeys him” (EDNT).

Paul Benware applies this point well in an article [“Leadership Authority in the Church,” Conservative Theological Journal 3.8 (1989), pp. 10-12]:

The emphasis here [Heb. 13:17] is on an obedience that comes from being persuaded that something is true. In this case, it would be the truth of the Word of God that is in view. Here they are being called upon to persuade the people that follow them with the truth of the Word of God… The elders are not to say “Do it because I say so”, but rather “Do what I show you from God’s Word.” …

Leadership authority in the church, then, is the power granted to men to lead the flock of God according to the Word of God, guiding, protecting and feeding them for their benefit and God’s glory. This kind of leadership authority will persuade believers from the scriptures resulting in obedience and submission to Christ the one and only head of the church.

John Owen says much the same in his commentary on Hebrews 13:17:

1st. It is not a blind, implicit obedience and subjection, that is here prescribed. A pretence hereof hath been abused to the ruin of the souls of men: but there is nothing more contrary to the whole nature of gospel obedience, which is our “reasonable service;” and in particular, it is that which would frustrate all the rules and directions given unto believers in this epistle itself, as well as elsewhere, about all the duties that are required of them. For to what purpose are they used, if no more be required but that men give up themselves, by an implicit credulity, to obey the dictates of others?

2dly. It hath respect unto them in their office only. If those who suppose themselves in office do teach and enjoin things that belong not unto their office, there is no obedience due unto them by virtue of this command. So is it with the guides of the church of Rome, who, under a pretence of their office, give commands in secular things, no way belonging unto the ministry of the gospel.

3dly. It is their duty so to obey whilst they teach the things which the Lord Christ hath appointed them to teach; for unto them is their commission limited, Matt. 28:20: and to submit unto their rule whilst it is exercised in the name of Christ, according to his institution, and by the rule of the word, and not otherwise. When they depart from these, there is neither obedience nor submission due unto them.

Finally, Matthew Henry, in his old (and under-appreciated) commentary, offers this pointed one-sentence summary:

Christians must submit to be instructed by their ministers, and not think themselves too wise, too good, or too great, to learn from them; and, when they find that ministerial instructions are agreeable to the written word, they must obey them.

Ultimately pastoral ministry centers on Christ and His Message, not on the pastor and his role as messenger. And so to obey and submit to our pastors is a call to esteem and respect and obey the Word of God. This is why it can be said that “an elder with no Bible is an elder with no authority” (Mark Lauterbach).

Hebrews 13:17 is beautifully balanced and stabilizing for Christians who live in a culture suspicious of all authority. It encourages our biblical discernment. It encourages us to find a solid church where the Bible is taught clearly and persuasively. It moves our attention off autonomous human authority. It focuses our attention on the weightiness of Scripture. And it encourages humble submission of our lives to the faithful preaching and counsel we receive from our still-fallible pastors. It is a passage that helps us see the faithfully preached word for what it is — an authoritative message from God to be obeyed.