Once we are free from the need to showcase our abilities, to climb the ecclesiastical ladder, and to gain power and influence, we are also free to enjoy Jesus and the privilege of serving him. Our fulfillment comes not from our position in our church or organization but from the high privilege of serving our beloved Lord. 

Whatever You Do, Glorify
The ambition of any sincere servant of God is to glorify God through his or her life and ministry. Paul said, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Our desire is to do well in ministry so that God is glorified. We want our work to be great so that people will see God’s greatness, not to show off our talents or to be greater than others. But today we are hampered in this pursuit by false values, which present other kinds of ambitions.
False Understandings of Success
There is great freedom in being released from bondage to the world’s standards of success. A sinful spirit of competition and envy and the desire to be better than others can deprive us of that freedom. In a media-saturated age with multiple competitions for measuring who is the “greatest” in numerous fields, it is easy to fall into the trap of measuring our significance using unbiblical criteria. We have lists of the greatest athletes, sexiest men and women, most popular or best actors and actresses, and so on. It’s easy for those who don’t make those lists to feel insignificant and inferior. Ours is a celebrity culture that measures significance based on things like fame, affluence, and the scope of our work.
A false understanding of success is a major cause for many people feeling unfulfilled and unhappy as they serve God. I have seen books and heard talks that claim that everyone can be a leader if they follow the right prescription for leadership. If that were true, then those who are not leaders will be disappointed by their failure to achieve the “success” of being a leader. The biblical view is that leadership is a call, and those gifted with leadership ability will receive that call. One might say that only Peter, James, John, and Judas (for the wrong reasons) were famous out of the twelve apostles. But there is nothing in the Bible that says the others were not following God’s will for their lives. Paul takes great pains to say that all Christians are equally significant whether their gifts give them prominence or not (1 Cor. 12:14–25).
Envy and a competitive spirit were problems among Jesus’s disciples. Once they were arguing about who was the greatest, and Jesus’s response was, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). I am convinced the most Christians who say they believe in the full authority of the Bible do not accept the authority of these words in their own lives. If for some reason they become “last,” they get angry. For instance, what if someone else gets a promotion they think they deserve? Some let this anger fester inside of them until it ruins their joy and transforms them into people controlled by bitterness.
The disciples didn’t immediately learn the lesson Jesus was trying to teach them. A little later, James and John asked for seats at the right and the left of Christ in the kingdom—a request that infuriated the other ten disciples (Mark 10:36–41). Again, this display of unbiblical ambition prompted some profound teaching by Jesus. He showed them that the world’s method is to value those who have great authority over others (Mark 10:42). This is a measure of significance and success among Christians today too. We ask, “How many staff do you have working under you?”
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Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Friday, August 2, 2024
Read large sections over a short period of time, reading sequentially through the accounts in as few sittings as possible. Read all of it before returning to the text to begin highlighting and writing notes. Try to put yourself in the crime scene. If you were the original investigator, what follow-up questions would you have asked a particular eyewitness? It just might be that another eyewitness has already answered that question in his own account of the events. Identify and highlight the details of each witness statement so they can later be assembled to resolve any conflicts. Think like a detective.

I’ve examined many claims about the past; most of them were criminal. At our agency, we’ve got a room full of binders that contain the details of every homicide our department has ever worked. Our homicide vault holds the files of all our solved and unsolved murders. My dad’s old cases are in this room, along with the cases that I’ve solved over the years. Someday my son may also have some of his cases on the shelves along with those of his father and grandfather. The first step in examining an unsolved case from the past is to pull out its binder and make a copy. I copy the contents because the next thing I am about to do is going to be ugly. I’m about to make a mess of the case files and documents. I want to encourage you to do something similar when examining the contents of the most important case in history; I want you to make a mess of your Bible.
When I examine a case from the past, I begin by parsing through every word from the original file. I read the case from cover to cover in the sequence of events as they occurred. I have a set of colored markers at my disposal and I use these markers to circle, underline, and highlight important areas of concern or evidential value. By the time I’m done, it’s clear that an investigator has been going through the file. It’s a colorful mess. I examine a few distinct areas and try to understand the connected nature of all the evidence. Here are just a few of the things that are important to me:
Evidence Collection
I highlight those items that are described in the original documents that ought to be recoverable as pieces of evidence. This helps me to form an early list of what might be important at trial.
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Jesus is God’s final word in redemptive history (Heb. 1:2). He has fulfilled all Old Testament promises and expectations. We now await the consummation of his kingdom in the new creation. There’s no going back to the shadow of Canaan. Hebrews, instead, envisions God’s one pilgrim people on the verge of entering their final heavenly homeland. Like Abraham and other Old Testament saints, we are waiting for a city with foundations, whose designer and builder is God. 

The epistle to the Hebrews is known for its rich Christological themes. Hebrews celebrates the deity of Christ and his messianic enthronement in heaven. It describes in detail the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement and his ongoing priestly mediation. It proclaims his supremacy over all old covenant persons and institutions and champions the superior salvation that he has obtained. With so many major Christological theological themes, why consider what Hebrews teaches us about the fulfillment of the land promise?
First, the land promise is a key component of the Abrahamic covenant and a major part of Old Testament theology. How we understand the land promise and its fulfillment depends on our fundamental assumptions about how the Bible fits together. The fulfillment of the land promise remains one of the most prominent points of contention between dispensationalists and covenant theologians. Hebrews clarifies how we are to think about the land promise now that Christ has ushered in the last days of redemptive history (Heb. 1:2). Second, by grasping what Hebrews says about the fulfillment of the land promise, we will better understand the “great salvation” that Jesus has obtained for us (Heb. 2:3). The land promise is not just a matter for theological debate, but a promise that has found an escalated fulfillment in Christ who has won an inheritance for his people that far surpasses the geographical boundaries of the biblical land of Canaan.
The argument of this short essay is that Hebrews presents the biblical land of Canaan as an earthly type of the heavenly realm of God’s rest and as a type of the coming new creation, thus speaking against the possibility of a future historical fulfillment of the land promise to national Israel. To defend this argument, I will consider Hebrews’ use of “inheritance” language, the typological relationship between the land and heaven and the new creation, and the permanent rest Jesus has obtained as a better Joshua. An examination of the fulfillment of the land promise in Hebrews has the double benefit of fortifying our faith to persevere toward our final heavenly homeland and clarifying our interpretive assumptions. In other words, a study of the land promise in Hebrews feeds our souls and sharpens our theological frameworks.
Abraham’s Inheritance and Ours
Dana Harris has persuasively argued that Hebrews uses the language of “inheritance” to connect the believer’s salvation to the promises of the Abrahamic covenant: “The inheritance motif in Hebrews must be understood in terms of the Abrahamic promises, which became interwoven with a rich cluster of related themes, such as covenant, the tabernacle, and God’s holy mountain.”[1] The land promise is one of the “rich cluster of themes” related to Hebrew’s inheritance motif because Hebrews 11:8 refers to the “land of promise” as Abraham’s “inheritance.”[2] The “inheritance of salvation” that believers are about to receive is the same inheritance that Abraham desired—not Canaan, but a “city with foundations whose designer and builder is God” (Heb. 11:9–10).
The city with foundations is the same eschatological inheritance that Hebrews elsewhere refers to as a “better country” (Heb. 11:16), a heavenly homeland (Heb. 11:14–16), the “city to come” (Heb. 13:14), and the “world to come” (Heb. 2:5; cf. Heb. 1:6). The “world to come” (Heb. 2:5) is the heavenly realm that Christ entered at his ascension.[3] It is an eschatological world subjected to the incarnate Christ, not angels (Heb. 2:5–9). It is a world fit for human habitation and functions as the heavenly archetype of the biblical land of Canaan, the earthly type (more on this below). The heavenly realm already subjected to the reign of Christ will one day come from heaven to earth when Christ returns. The “promised eternal inheritance” that belongs to Abraham’s offspring is life in the permanent new creation when heaven comes to earth (Heb. 1:10–14; 2:5; 11:9–10; 13:14).
The author of Hebrews wanted his readers to emulate Abraham’s faith because Abraham desired the same eschatological salvation that now belongs to new covenant believers.[4]
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Jesus is urging, even commanding, us to find life in him, in the vine. For someone who doesn’t know Jesus, this is a sweet invitation to come to him. For those already in real relationship with him, here is the voice of Jesus reminding us what salvation and life are all about. Jesus’s sheep know (and are known by) him, and so they listen to his voice (10:15–16). They need his words, they desire his words, and they listen to him. They ask for the fruit he has promised to produce in and through them (15:7–8), and they step out in love for one another. Whoever we are, this is a sweet, sweet invitation from the Lord of everything to keep on receiving and returning his love.

My son loves photography. He knows how to frame the shot just so, using the right amount of zoom to bring out the subject. Looking at original paintings displayed in a gallery, in a similar way, allows you to move yourself both closer and farther away. Your perspective on the whole picture and its detail changes as you move in and out.
Reading Scripture is similar — we need to zoom in and out to understand properly what God is saying. For example, how do you respond to the picture of the vine and branches that Jesus paints in John 15? Is it reassuring or confusing? Stabilizing or destabilizing?
Worryingly, is Jesus saying that we can be truly one with him but then lose our place? Does he intend to leave us feeling shaky and insecure? Thankfully, as we zoom in and out, we see that the answer is no. Jesus teaches us about the vine and branches so that we might know his joy and our joy might be full (John 15:11).
You-in-Me and Me-in-You
“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Jesus paints a picture here of a living vine — green, full of fruit, and flourishing. Jesus is together with those he loves, made one. This is real you-in-me and me-in-you connection and relationship with Jesus.
Zoom in closer and you’ll see something else: dead, fruitless branches (15:2), not vitally united by the Spirit to the person of Jesus and his life. They’re on the vine, hanging around Jesus. They might claim to be Christians, but they probably wouldn’t even be comfortable saying to Jesus, “Lord, you’re in me, and I’m in you.” Some people are existing like that lifeless wood. They’re not united to the source of life, not “grafted in.” It’s a precarious position, to say the least (15:2, 6).
Zoom out to the big picture, however, and you’ll find the friendship formula of you-in-me and me-in-you in John 14 and 17 too. It’s how Jesus, in John’s Gospel, describes life as opposed to death. It’s union with him as opposed to being apart from him — or vitally connected, fruit-bearing branches as opposed to empty ones (15:5–6).
That friendship formula of mutual indwelling stands out in John 15 as well. The Greek word for “abide” means staying put. Here’s a good translation of verse 5: “Whoever is lastingly in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” You in Christ and him in you, for keeps. No single translation is perfect, but “lives” or “dwells” also captures the thrust. This is unbreakable friendship and, wonderfully, friendship where he loved us first.
Forever Secure
Zoom out even further and you’ll find the same friendship formula of mutual indwelling in John 6 (and throughout 1 John), describing what it means to be vitally united to Jesus — one with him.
John 6 explains, in effect, how someone becomes “grafted into” the living vine. Changing the metaphor, they’re hungry and thirsty. They come to Jesus (6:35). They trust him, person-to-person, looking to him now for life.
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What the world does not need is a westernization devoid of Christianity. Rather, the world needs a church committed to be the Church, as Chuck Colson often said, with Christians who self-consciously work to make the extraordinary truths of the Faith an integral part of everyday, ordinary living. Not just on Sunday mornings, but in our families, our jobs, our politics, and cultural work. Or, said differently, the world doesn’t need the West. It needs the Church. 

In a recent video posted on X, a Muslim cleric declared that the days of the West are numbered. Not only would formerly Islamic lands like Spain and Rome soon be retaken for Islam, he said, but the entire world would eventually fall to Islamic military rule.  
Predictions of Western humiliation are, of course, not new. To radical Islam, the West has always been the source of corruption and perversion infecting the rest of the world. This despite all that the West has given the world, from free markets to voting rights, universal education, liberty of conscience, among other things. In fact, by nearly every material measurement, societies that have embraced Western principles derived from Christian and Enlightenment ideas have fared better than those that have not. As many have noted, the flow of immigration between Western and non-Western nations trends strongly in one direction. 
And yet, the West is in a profound identity crisis, to the delight of anti-West ideologues. From Pride parades each June to intellectual elites, including a sitting member of the U.S. Supreme Court, who claim to not know what a woman is, Western society is increasingly unhitching from the traditional beliefs and values that grounded its understanding of human dignity. 
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Theologically, we believe that all the words of Scripture were written by God’s Spirit for his people. They are meant to both inform us—ultimately of Jesus Christ—and change our behaviour (for e.g. 2 Tim 3:16–17; 1 Pet 1:10–11; 2 Pet 1:20–21). Yet we also know that they are human documents, not transcendent of history, but records of it and within it (e.g. Luke 1:1–4; 1 John 1:1–3). Taken together, as both a divine and human document, the word of God for us should be read according to the moments that it addresses.

I’ve been teaching a class on biblical theology and interpretation. The aim is the examine how we read and understand the Bible, how it fits together, culminates in Jesus and applies to us today. One of the key principles in biblical interpretation is that the text doesn’t say something different to us than what it said to its first hearers. That is, there’s nothing new or hidden in the text, we just need to work hard to understand it and its context.
After class one week a student said to me, “Can you tell me why it is that we need to understand the passage in its original context before we apply it to ourselves?” He wasn’t doubting that this is a good thing to do, just wanting to press deeper into why it’s the right thing. How do we know that this is how we should read the Bible?
At one level the answer seems like common sense. However, given the earnestness of the question I wanted to think a bit deeper.
The Theological Reason for Reading in Context
The philosophical and theological reason for reading in context is because the Bible is a serious and intentional text. Something written simply to entertain or amuse may not require paying attention to context in quite the same way—although the upheaval of context might be part of such a text’s ability to entertain. However, something written with a serious intention, whether to convey information or change people’s behaviour, always needs to be understood according to a context. That could be the context created by the narrative and/or a context created by the historical moment being spoken into (in the case of a letter).
The Scriptures were not written simply to record stories for their own sake nor to entertain. They were written for the purpose of changing the minds of those who read them. This is abundantly clear in certain places (for e.g. Jn 20:31). But theologically, we believe that all the words of Scripture were written by God’s Spirit for his people. They are meant to both inform us—ultimately of Jesus Christ—and change our behaviour (for e.g. 2 Tim 3:16–17; 1 Pet 1:10–11; 2 Pet 1:20–21). Yet we also know that they are human documents, not transcendent of history, but records of it and within it (e.g. Luke 1:1–4; 1 John 1:1–3). Taken together, as both a divine and human document, the word of God for us should be read according to the moments that it addresses.
The other part of my answer I’m going to share here, by way of example, is that contextual reading of the Bible has always been required.
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Our days are numbered, and when God wants to take us home, he will. So if we believe these passages to be true, then we need to accept that it may have been time for Comperatore (who was a strong and devout Christian) to go to be with his Lord, while it was not yet Trump’s time. This of course does not answer every question, and likely will raise even more questions. But all we can do is try to carefully assess the biblical data as we try to make sense of events like this. 

The biblical Christian knows that when any big theological questions arise as to significant – and not so insignificant – events and occurrences in this world, there are at least three major players that must be taken into account. The three of course are God (and his sovereignty), man (with his moral accountability for his actions), and Satan (with his malicious interference).
So if a person loses his job, for example, we can speak of God’s movements in this, human choices, and satanic influences. How all three can be part of the overall equation is of course a bit of a mystery. And we would have to say that while all three elements must be kept in mind, at the end of the day God and his purposes will be the overriding consideration.
Just one clear example (of many) found in Scripture would be the fate of Joseph as found in the lengthy story about him in Genesis 37-50. His brothers treated him terribly, inspired as they were by satanic influences, and yet divine purposes were fully taking place. As Joseph told his brothers in Gen. 50:20: “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”
And the prime example of ugly satanic attacks, bad human choices, and overriding divine sovereignty, can be seen in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. How all three managed to cohere in this one mega-event is beyond our full comprehension, but we know that all three were involved. And in the end, the purposes of God stood.
The Trump Assassination Attempt
Let me examine one very recent and very well-known example of all this. Here we again find three main players: Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old who sought to murder Trump, Satan who certainly influenced him in this, and God, who as always is working out his divine purposes in all of life.
Sure, we could discuss other people involved, such as the Secret Service agents and others who were meant to protect Trump, but so miserably failed in their duties in so many ways. But you get my point: for believers to understand this event means to consider all three.
Having said all that by way of background, I want to look in particular at one aspect of this that has many people – both Christian and non-Christian – asking many questions. And that is this: Why was the life of Trump spared, but the life of Corey Comperatore not?
Again, we can look at the three parts of the equation: Crooks wanted to kill Trump, carried along as he was by satanic inspiration. Trump happened to turn his head at just the right time, while 50-year-old Comperatore, the former fire chief, chose to dive on his family to save them, and he lost his life doing so.
But the question is, why did God allow one to be killed and the other spared? As mentioned, there is always mystery in such matters. And we can ask these sorts of questions about millions of things: Why did that guy get the job I was after? Why did that girl I liked so much marry another? Why did he get healed of cancer while I did not? On and on it goes.
As I say, so many are asking about all this. Let me offer just one high profile example. Yesterday at the Republican National Convention evangelist Franklin Graham not only briefly shared the gospel message in his short talk, but he led the crowd in prayer as well.
And he mentioned, as did so many others, that it was a God thing that Trump survived the assassin’s bullet. But he went on to say this: “I cannot explain why God would save one life and allow another one to be taken. I don’t have the answer for that.”
That is a good and proper response. There is plenty of mystery here. We just do not always know why God does what he does. When I posted his statement on the social media, one gal responded with these words: “God protection and divine intervention around one but not the other. It’s a tough one.”
Yes it is. But what I said above is part of how we can try to make some sense of it all.
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With such a variety of prayer postures in the Bible, I think we should assume that taking one particular posture for prayer is not the main issue in prayer. The primary issue is that you actually talk to the Lord when you pray. Do be aware, though, that certain postures lend themselves more readily to certain types of praying; for example, lying prostrate on your face seems more appropriate for repentance than lying on your bed. But try to find a mix of prayer postures that best allow you to pray.

When I first started to learn how to pray on my own, I thought that I had to kneel when I prayed. Most of the people I had read about who were pray-ers were also kneel-ers. For example, a second-century Christian named Hegesippus records that James, the half-brother of Jesus, “was frequently found situated upon his knees asking forgiveness for the people, so that his knees became hard after the manner of a camel, on account of always bending down upon a knee while worshipping God and asking forgiveness for the people.”[1] As a young man, I so wanted to have camel knees!
But when I tried it, I kept falling asleep while kneeling next to my bed. (I had no idea it was possible to fall asleep on my knees! My grandson might say that that was my superpower.)
I tried standing, pacing around my room, and sitting on a comfortable chair with my hands turned upward. It took two years from the time I committed myself to develop a personal prayer life to find a prayer posture that really worked for me. The breakthrough came when I learned that my beloved teacher, David Needham, took daily prayer walks. “What? You can walk and pray at the same time?” I decided to try it and, as a result of his example, have been prayer-walking for the past four decades.
But walking and trying to pray is not going to work well for many people, especially for people who get easily distracted by things they see.
So let me list out other prayer postures you might try that I’ve found in the Bible, since there is such a variety in the Bible itself, with the goal of helping you grow in your times of prayer.

Standing. Hannah stood while she prayed for God to give her a child (1 Sam 1:26). Jesus prayed while standing before the tomb of Lazarus just before raising him from the dead (John 11:41). Psalm 4:4 says that we should, “Stand in awe.” In one parable of Jesus, both characters are standing for prayer in the temple (Luke 18:10-14). In 2 Chronicles 20:13 it says that the whole congregation of Israel stood before the Lord.
Lifting or stretching out one’s hands. 1 Timothy 2:8 encourages, “I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands.” Psalm 141:2 reads, “Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!” (Cf. Exod 9:29)
Lifting eyes upward. Now, in certain situations it’s a good idea to close your eyes in prayer to keep from being distracted by the things around you. But frequently in the Bible, people lift their open eyes upward. Psalm 121:1 says, “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?

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Sometimes, our shortsightedness causes us to question God’s ways—especially when we pray for deliverance, and things only seem to get worse. In those moments, we are tempted to doubt God’s sovereignty and wisdom. And yet, those are precisely the moments we need to trust God’s sovereignty. Ultimately, all things will work for our good and for his glory. In Joseph’s case, when he was finally out of prison and leading the greatest nation on earth, he was able to see that God planned his life with all its anguish and pain to bring about the salvation of many from the famine.

God’s Complete Sovereignty
The Bible is crystal clear: God is sovereign over all his creatures. Everything that happens unfolds according to his plan, without exception.
If you’re encountering these ideas for the first time, you likely have a few questions, especially with regard to God’s sovereignty over evil. If God planned all things that ever come to pass, how is he not also the author of sin, seeing that sin is among all the things that take place in human history?
Questions like this are even more pertinent when we consider the severity of human suffering. How can a God of love allow the kind of suffering that we see in the world today? If he is truly in control of the world and has the power to stop wickedness and suffering, then why wouldn’t he?
This second question has prompted many people to assume there are only two options: (1) if God is sovereign, then he could not possibly be holy and good; or (2) if God is holy and good, then he must not be completely sovereign.
Are either of those true? Most Christians know we should dismiss the first option out of hand. If the Bible is clear on anything, it’s clear on the holiness and goodness of God. But what about that second option? Are Satan and evil human actions simply outside of God’s control? Is God simply doing his best to hem evil in but occasionally failing to keep it at bay—just managing the whole affair to work for good after the fact?
If you’ve been tracking with all of the biblical passages we’ve been examining, then you’ll realize that the Bible never presents God as powerlessly subject to the decisions of his human creatures—simply responding to them as best he can. No, according to Scripture, God is absolutely sovereign over all the actions of his creatures, even their sinful ones. As Amos 3:6 says: “Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?”
God brings disaster on a city, and yet Scripture maintains that he remains holy and good. His sovereignty doesn’t compromise his holiness, and his holiness doesn’t compromise his sovereignty. In fact, the biblical authors never even acknowledge any supposed tension between these two ideas. They simply reveal that God is sovereign, holy, and good.
Let’s look at how Scripture affirms both ideas: first, God is sovereign over evil; and second, how he remains holy and righteous.
1. God is sovereign over evil.
The Bible teaches that God sometimes hardens human hearts resulting in people doing moral evil. For instance, God said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go” (Ex. 4:21). God did the same to Sihon, king of Heshbon, in Deuteronomy 2:30: “But Sihon the king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him, for the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that he might give him into your hand, as he is this day.” Israel’s experiences in Egypt and on the road to Canaan, their cruel oppression by Pharaoh and the resistance they met from the Canaanites, ultimately came from God’s sovereign hand.
We see this same point taught not only in the books of Moses but in the Psalms as well. The psalmists referred to the way God’s people suffered in Egypt as something that God planned and carried out. “He turned [the Egyptians’] hearts to hate his people, to deal craftily with his servants” (Ps. 105:25). As I’ve already pointed out, perhaps the greatest display of God’s sovereignty over human sin was the events surrounding the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of his Son. Remember the prayer of the apostles in Acts 4? “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23).
2. God is sovereign over evil but is not the author of evil.
At the same time, Scripture is clear that God cannot and does not commit sin. God hates sin with absolute hatred.
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With so many needs and so many differing opportunities for good, pastors can be pulled in as many different directions as he has people. To this, Hebrews 13:17 purifies the pastoral office: his business is to care for souls, to watch over them. As doctors deal with the health of the body, pastors deal with the health of the soul.

Once you see it, you cannot unsee it; once you really read it, you realize it is reading you; once you have wrestled with it for a blessing, you cannot walk away the same. Hebrews 13:17 is a text for both pastors and their people: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.”
The verse speaks about the office of pastor but is written to the whole church. Its truth instructs as well as sobers our souls. As for this passage, stammers John Chrysostom, “though I have mentioned it once already, yet I will break silence about it now, for the fear of its warning is continually agitating my soul” (Treatise Concerning the Christian Priesthood, 6.1). All need to ride along for this single-verse foretaste of the final judgment, where pastors and their people, shepherds and sheep, stand together before the awesome throne of the chief Shepherd.
I hope God will stamp this verse upon our souls and that our communities will never be the same. This verse has had a deep effect on many men of God before us, and boasts a cloud of pastoral witnesses who would counsel us as we pass. I hope to allow a few to speak. Consider, then, Hebrews 13:17 in three parts: (1) the pastor’s business, (2) the pastor’s report, and (3) the response of the church.
The Pastor’s Business
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls . . .
Pastors can lack fruit because pastors can lack clarity. With so many needs and so many differing opportunities for good, pastors can be pulled in as many different directions as he has people. To this, Hebrews 13:17 purifies the pastoral office: his business is to care for souls, to watch over them. As doctors deal with the health of the body, pastors deal with the health of the soul. Summarizes John Owen,
The work and design of these rulers is solely to take care of your souls — by all means to preserve them from evil, sin, backsliding; to instruct and feed them; to promote their faith and obedience; that they may be led safely to eternal rest. For this end is their office appointed, and herein do they labor continually. (An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 4:454)
Pastors keep their eyes on souls and seek to lead them safely to eternal rest — an ambition “without which [pastor] is an empty name.” To see how this charge focuses the work, consider more carefully the words souls and keeping watch.
Souls. The soul is that part of a man, woman, child that shall live forever, somewhere. Do you appreciate the value of your soul — that which Jesus tells you not to barter for the world and all its pleasures (Matthew 16:26)? Pastors, do you appreciate the awful greatness of your stewardship? Lemuel Haynes puts it bluntly: “The man who does not appreciate the worth of souls and is not greatly affected with their dangerous situation is not qualified for the sacred office” (Collected Writings of Lemuel Haynes, 183).
Notice, we are discussing the work of a pastor, not just a preacher. Keeping watch over souls entails receiving information, not just giving it. When many think of pastoring, they think about standing up front, mic turned on, Bible open. But how many want the long hours with souls — asking and listening, speaking and repeating, praying and encouraging and correcting, house after house, family after family?
How does a pastor fulfill this charge? Practically, soul-watching includes at least three activities: knowing, feeding, and warning.
1. Knowing
The pastor deals not only with the differing spiritual conditions of his own soul and the souls of his family, but with dozens more simultaneously. How variable their conditions, how varying the remedies. See them there: Some are drawing swords against Apollyon; others pant, climbing Hill Difficulty; still others submerge neck-deep in the Slough of Despond. A few feast within Palace Beautiful, but more window-shop at Vanity Fair or receive bruises from Giant Despair. Flatterer seduces; Demas beckons; Lord Hate-Good is still hating good. What few aids to the Celestial City, and what towering opposition. How needful are pastors?
The pastoral plurality must regularly acquaint themselves with each member’s state. Paul commands, “Pay careful attention to . . . all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers” (Acts 20:28). To “all the flock,” not “favorite sheep”; “careful attention,” not “occasional glances.”
How? By being with them. Inquire into their love for Christ, their time in the word and prayer, their fellowship in the church, the presence of family worship in their homes. Eat meals together, pray together, sing together, and open the word together. Develop care records and organize your prayer life so that none fall through the cracks. Make time to counsel, and be intentional to press past life updates to see how is it with their souls. Are they beginning to doubt, walking in sin, growing in grace? Are they still traveling safely toward Immanuel’s land?
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