Gashmu
saith it

This is because we have been greatly blessed in our community, and so it is absolutely necessary for us to equip ourselves in two areas. We must educate our immigrants, and we must educate the next generation. If we do not do this, then we will be faced with two disasters. The first is what might be called “Californians moving to Texas, but continuing to vote like Californians.” The second is the son of a billionaire growing up without ever breaking a sweat, or having any knowledge what having calluses might be like.

Experiencing blessings without understanding the basis of those blessings is like dancing blindfold along the edge of a precipice. As Cotton Mather put it, faithfulness begat prosperity, and the daughter devoured the mother. Or as Moses described Israel’s future prosperity and apostasy, Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked (Deut. 32:15). Moses knew that once you are well into a blessing, it is perilously easy to take it all for granted, and simply to assume that continuation of that blessing is your irrevocable birthright (Deut. 8:1-20). The apostle Paul saw what had happened to the Jews in this thoughtlessness, and warned the Gentile Christians in Rome against committing the very same sin (Rom. 11:19-21). And he issued the same stern warning to the Gentile Christians at Corinth (1 Cor. 10:1-11).

Under three things the earth trembles; under four it cannot bear up: a slave when he becomes king, and a fool when he is filled with food; an unloved woman when she gets a husband, and a maidservant when she displaces her mistress. (Prov. 30:21–23, ESV)

There is a pressing temptation, whenever someone unexpectedly comes into great blessing, to react thoughtlessly and glibly, like some cracker redneck who won big at Powerball. We handle it the way a two-year-old would handle a glass of whiskey. Whatever you do, whatever you say, however you think of it, don’t be that guy.

A MINISTER’S TASK

One of the things I need to do early on in this small booklet is explain what I think I am up to, and why you should read any further.

The message a minister is appointed to proclaim is the basic gospel message—the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor. 15:1-4)—oriented, as it necessarily must be, to the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27). This is not a message torn out of the Scriptures, but rather a message that is situated at the center of all Scripture. But the wisdom of God is not placed in our trust so that we may speak it into a void. The preacher is not supposed to learn what he is supposed to say the same way a parrot does, or an answering machine, and then say that, regardless of the circumstances. No matter who calls, the answering machine says the same thing. This is not the commission of a minister of the Word.

No. Preachers of the gospel must also be students of the culture they are sent to. A minister must be a student of the Word, but he must also be a student of men. He must study them—not just men generally, but the men of his own era, the men to whom he is charged to bring the gospel. When the Lord speaks to each of the angels of the seven churches of Asia, the message for each church is different. Same gospel, different sins, and so a different message applying that gospel.

And men are not to be studied so that the minister might best know how to flatter them. “For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness” (1 Thess. 2:5, ESV, emphasis added). Rather, they must be studied because their sins are different, their blind spots vary, and this is why their fortifications against the Spirit of God must be attacked differently.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. (2 Cor. 10:3–5)

A man who is charged with pulling down strongholds must be a student, therefore, of two things. He must be a student of the gear he is using, and he must be a student of the tower he is charged with toppling. He must know the gospel, and the Scripture that houses it, and he must also know the state of the current imaginations, whether those imaginations are healthy or diseased. He needs to know where to attach the ropes. This means that in order to have a true impact, a local church must understand some of the fundamental theological issues in play and how they intersect with the large cultural issues of our day.