John Armstrong, "Equipping Lives for the Ministry of the Gospel, Part 3"

Equipping Lives for the Ministry of the Gospel, Part 3

April 28, 2008
John H. Armstrong

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In the past two ACT 3 Weekly articles I laid out several of the points I shared with a seminary class in Florida in March. I was asked to contribute from my own experience to the preparation of these students in a divinity school setting. In this third and final installment of my three-part series, I add these further points that I made to the seminary class in Florida.

1. Understand and Teach the Plotline of the Bible

The Bible clearly consists of many stories. These many stories reveal to us the living and true God. Each portion of Holy Scripture is inspired by God but not all portions are of the same importance in revealing God to us. All Scripture can feed us, teach us and guide us, but we must interpret the Scripture to make any sense of it at all.

The problem I find, throughout the Christian world, is that we do not understand the central story of the Bible. I think the place to begin is in Luke 24:13-35 where Jesus opens the Scripture to two men, on the road to Emmaus, and explains how all the story of the Scripture is about him (24:25-27). This is why St. Augustine rightly said that the New Testament is concealed in the Old and the Old is revealed in the New. Sometimes this approach has been called "Christo-centric." I used this terminology for decades and still like it, but I have come to embrace a richer and fuller concept taught to me by several biblical scholars who happen to be my friends. They refer to the whole Bible as being "Christo-telic." The word "telic" here comes from the Greek word telos, which refers to the end, the final point, or the right perspective. The point is that all Scripture is given to reveal the end purpose of God which is discovered in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth.

Pastors and people must know this. They must show others how to read the Bible this way and then help people know their Bibles in this way. A lot of people learn Bible facts, even mastering trivia and stories. But they do not see the big story, thus they do not get the right perspective in view. The only way I know to get this is to know the Bible as a whole and then to show how to read it properly with this method in view. Sadly, most schools do not prepare pastors to do this and few Christians understand it. Massive mistakes in interpreting the Bible lead to massive categorical errors in application of the Bible to churches and culture.

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2. Learn the Value of the Creeds and Learn How to Teach Them Well

The earliest creeds were written to guide believers and congregations so that they would not stray far from the central message of the Bible. These creeds are distinctly Trinitarian in nature. Much of what we do and say in the Church today, at least in evangelical churches, is not deeply Trinitarian. The loss of perspective in spiritual formation, prayer, worship and right living is immense because of this flaw. A right use of the creeds can correct this over time.

Ministers ought to know the creeds and learn to use them well with their congregations. People should be taught to love them and learn them. A creedal church is a better taught church and one that can handle the important things of Christian thought and doctrine.

3. The Place for Catechism

Catechism of both young and old alike will go a long way in teaching Christian faith better. Once most Christians were trained in one or more catechetical tradition and thus people knew basic truths about the nature of God, sin, man, grace and the future. Today this is no longer the case. We have to begin all over again. The Christian tradition should not be scrapped but recovered at this point. This method is ancient but it is also modern and future.

I cannot think of a single church I know that has brought back this method that has regretted it in any sense of the word. I know many young Christians, my own children included, who are much stronger for this kind of teaching in their childhood.

4. The Church Must Become "A House of Prayer"

Jesus made it quite plain that he intended for his people to form assemblies where prayer would be central. Yet modern pastors and churches do not make prayer central to the life and ministry of the church. We talk about it, teach it sometimes, but we pray so very little as a church. Rare is the church that ever has a dedicated place and time for real intercession. Rare is the leadership team (council, session or consistory or deacon group) that makes prayer a real priority. We pray and then we work. The real work is the prayer. If we prayed I am convinced we would work less and gather more real fruit.

Seminaries are notoriously weak about this matter. There are few, if any, courses on prayer and the amount of prayer the seminary community offers is little in most instances. Teachers will pray, now and then, but students are too busy studying to pass exams to pray.

5. Understand and Teach Epistemology

The word episteme means knowledge and the word epistanai means to understand or to believe. Epistemology is thus the study of the nature, source and limits of knowledge. Epistemology seeks to relate faith to human knowledge. How much can we know, how can we know it and what are the limits to our knowing?

Science says statements about knowledge must be tested by experiments and proven. Many biblical methods treat the Bible in much the same way. We learn the ways to test the Scripture-exegesis through the original languages, textual critical skills and expository methodologies-and then conclude that if we agree on the method and the inspiration of the text we can know with certainty almost everything that we read in the Bible. This conclusion is both false and unwise. Indeed, I believe it is dangerous. It builds up a kind of pride that has flooded many conservative schools and churches in stark opposition to the pride of liberals who believe they can discern what is good and right and reject what they do not need or accept in the Bible.

Is knowledge possible on the grounds of scientific exegesis, reason or experience? Some have argued that the proper use of reason is the key. I think all have their place but what we forget is that "the secret things belong to the Lord our God" (Deuteronomy 29:29), and "for now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, then [that is when we are in his presence someday] we shall see face to face [clearly] (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Epistemology asks questions that are important to theology. Can we have knowledge without understanding? The Bible and the Church have said we can, it seems to me.

Are there limits to knowledge? Again, it seems both the Bible and the Church have said yes. We can know some things but we cannot know the eternal essence of them. We perceive, and by faith we trust, but we do not know all mysteries.

The presentation of the Christian faith presupposes that knowing is possible. I teach apologetics, a defense of the faith that is built on the premise that people can know truth. Theology assumes, rightly so, that God is able to overcome our limitations to reach us or he is able to make himself known within our limitations.

Reason and revelation are not opposites. We can have a view of truth that sees it as a unity. Theology and philosophy can dialog and not be eternal enemies. People can ask their questions of the Christian faith, but they cannot understand fully the answers of that faith.

Reason is the human capacity to carry out organized mental activities such as the association of ideas, the induction and deduction of inferences, or the formulation of value judgments. In Isaiah 1:18 God calls on human persons to reason with him about the gospel and this pattern is repeated throughout the Scripture.

But human reason is fallen. One of the effects of redemption is the "renewing of the human mind" (cf. Romans 12:2). As we grow in grace it seems that we can reason better in accord with the truth that is discovered in Christ. We become captives to the Spirit of God. Our thinking processes can become more Christ-like in both cognition of truth and in moral perception and response.

But we can never attain the place, at least in this life, where we have the last word on either revelation or ourselves. No human theological system and no mortal being can adequately explain immortality and the eternal God so as to solve the mysteries of our faith. We can only "lisp," as Calvin put it. This calls for epistemic humility, an all too uncommon feature in many conservative churches and schools.

6. We Must Love the Church

Most of you would expect me to teach this truth wherever possible. I believe Christ loves the Church and gave himself up for her. I believe he calls on us to love her and to live at peace with one another. This takes me to John 17 and the prayer Jesus prayed for us to be one. Too many ministers help foster divisions by their personal opinions and leadership styles. We must learn to cherish the bride of Christ, and the only bride we can now see is the visible church with all her flaws.

This is as much my personal passion now as anything in my life. I am writing my next book on this very subject: Your Church Is Too Small. I do not understand how you can love Jesus and not love his Church, not as a theory but as a real, visible and whole reality. I urged the seminarians to make this their life's passion as well.