With their deep understanding of the brutal realities of my life and the potential dangers that lurk, my pastors do not “motivate” me; they shepherd me. Modeling “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Deuteronomy 8:3,  Matthew 4:4). They preach the whole counsel of God provided in the Scriptures.

“Are we serving you well?”
The unexpected question from two pastors caught me off guard, prompting a moment of reflection. As pastors of a large Nashville church, their humility in asking about their ministry’s impact on my life deeply touched me. Despite being one of several thousand members, their concern for my well-being amidst the challenges I faced as the sole caregiver for my wife with severe disabilities was both surprising and humbling.
The context, however, contained the impetus. As the sole caregiver for my wife with severe disabilities and a medical history that now spans forty years and 85+ operations, they recognized the strain on my life. They also knew that our circumstances would not get easier with age and that my wife’s broken body and amputated limbs would not be reversed this side of Heaven.
Reflecting on what they inquired, I answered them in a way that seemed to surprise them.
“I am in the congregation and listen to every one of your sermons—and you know my challenges. If your preaching and teaching don’t effectively help me better understand the Gospel and how it applies to my life as a caregiver, then what’s the point of the message?
As they listened intently, I explained, “My journey as a caregiver is all-encompassing and spans a lifetime. I know how to “care-give,” but do I know how to live? Do I understand the principles and precepts of scripture as they apply to me as someone who watches someone suffer daily? What do I do with fear, guilt, despair, and a host of other issues that caregivers feel?
While the men nodded with understanding, I concluded, “Your clear, concise, and precise teaching of the scriptures is what equips me to endure—this is how you are caring for me.”
Those pastors, whom I count as dear friends, still invest in my life even though I moved across the country several years back. With great clarity and sincerity, they spoke to the heart issue I bear—and that all caregivers carry: We struggle with a good and loving God who allows the suffering and misery we often see daily.
That conversation with those pastors remains a seminal moment in my understanding of effective pastoral care for hurting congregants. Despite a question that might have opened the door to criticism, their simple inquiry led to “precision pastoring.”
I’ve heard too many pulpits preach a message of “You’re going to get your breakthrough” or “Your challenges are a set-up to a step-up” style sermons. Bluntly speaking, those kinds of topical, motivational messages with a “Jesus” flair mean nothing to me—nor to the thousands of caregivers I’ve talked to over the years.
Jesus told Peter to “feed my sheep,” not entertain or inspire them.
Our friends who live near our home in Montana run a ranch filled with cattle, sheep, and goats. During the lambing season, I love to stop and watch the baby goats and lambs playfully hop, prance, and dance around while their cautious mothers watch them, ensuring they stay in line and safe from harm. During this vulnerable time, they remained protected from predators within an oversized pen. At the pen’s center lies a large circular feeder, where the ewes gather around to fuel themselves with ample hay deposits to meet their young’s demanding needs.
The new mothers require lots of sustenance to meet the extreme needs of nursing and protecting their babies. When the weather is cold, and the sheep are at their most vulnerable while giving birth, the watchful ranchers feed and protect them. In warmer weather, they move to pastures where they can live a little more independently.
Numerous accounts share how our savior referred to himself as the shepherd and us as the sheep. I can’t imagine the apostle Peter not understanding the context of raising sheep while listening to Jesus’ command.
Our rancher friends provide an up-close view of “precision shepherding.” Their ranch’s survival depends upon properly feeding the sheep quality food—particularly during harsh climates. If the power goes out, the water troughs can freeze—and during Montana’s often brutal winter climate, the ice requires breaking, a backup generator, or all sorts of other emergency tasks to ensure the livestock’s survival. During those vulnerable times, the ranchers don’t motivate the sheep; they intensely care for them. They only “motivate” them during the warm, relaxed time when they move them from pasture to pasture.
With their deep understanding of the brutal realities of my life and the potential dangers that lurk, my pastors do not “motivate” me; they shepherd me. Modeling “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Deuteronomy 8:3 & Matthew 4:4). They preach the whole counsel of God provided in the Scriptures.
They help me better understand (and anchor my life) in God’s sovereignty, provision, and faithfulness, strengthening my faith to trust Him with the daily grind of my life. They actively engaged, protected, fed, and nourished me with a profound understanding of the Gospel, providing the sustenance that has carried me through the most challenging times.
They still do.
Peter Rosenberger hosts the nationally syndicated radio program, Hope for the Caregiver. His newest book is A Minute for Caregivers—When Every Day Feels Like Monday. www.HopeforTheCaregiver.com
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John Murray demonstrates from the totality of Scripture’s witness that our faith cannot be our righteousness. This is clearly the work of a systematic theologian and not that of an exegete enamored with a single text believing it has the power to uproot and upset an entire system of thought! 

For those who believe that God does not accept and account a person righteous by imputing to them faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience, as the Westminster Confession contends, a passage like Romans 4:3 is hard to understand.  Not because of the grammatical construction. We see it in Genesis 15:6, from where Paul derives the quote, and we see the same construction in other places like Psalm 106:31. There we read that Phinehas’s killing of an Israelite man and Midianite woman was “counted to him as righteousness.” So, were the Westminster divines simply oblivious to something so plain as Romans 4:3 when they wrote chapter eleven or is there something that we might be missing?
The divines also state that “all things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves” and therefore require some work on our part to understand them. Therefore, I opt for the latter. We are missing something. But before we can start talking about what is missing from our understanding of the text, we need to start a little farther back.
Unity of the Theological Disciplines
To put it simply, what’s missing is the unity of the theological disciplines. We ought to think of the disciplines as a pyramid. At the foundation is the Bible, God’s Word. The Old Testament and the New Testament form the foundation of the pyramid. These disciplines include, at the very least, a study of the original languages and exegesis. Having done their work, these exegetes hand up the fruit of exegesis to the Biblical theologian whose method is historical in character. After he are finished, the historical theologians assess the development and continuity of a particular doctrine or movement.  And finally, the ripened fruit of these disciplines is handed to the queen of the sciences, systematic theology, and she assesses and organizes the evidence into a logical concatenated system of thought.
However, today the disciplines have gone rogue. Scholars have placed a chasm between the testaments and the queen has been accused of being a Greek philosopher in disguise. As a result, it is each discipline for itself. So, today it might help us to think about our opening example from the perspective of one scholar who appreciated the unity of the theological disciplines.
John Murray was a professor at old Westminster, and he was both a New Testament exegete and a first-rate systematic theologian who understood the need for the theological disciplines to respect and work together for the well-being of the church. Consider what Murray wrote in his essay titled, “Systematic Theology.”
Systematic theology is tied to exegesis. It coordinates and synthesizes the whole witness of Scripture on the various topics with which it deals…. Thus, the various passages drawn from the whole compass of Scripture and woven into the texture of systematic theology are not cited as mere proof texts or wrested from the scriptural and historical context to which they belong, but, understood in a way appropriate to the place they occupy in this unfolding process, are applied with that particular relevance to the topic under consideration.  Texts will not thus be forced to bear a meaning they do not possess nor forced into a service they cannot perform.  But in the locus to which they belong and by the import they do possess they will contribute to the sum-total of revelatory evidence by which biblical doctrine is established. We may never forget that systematic theology is the arrangement under appropriate divisions of the total witness of revelation to the truth respecting God and his relations to us men and to the world.[1]
Thus, in the work of exegesis, Murray is unwilling to do systematic theology and yet systematic theology is the end and capstone of the vital process of interpreting Scripture. This is a valuable lesson. In our haste to prove a point we must not press a particular passage to teach more or even less than it does. Or, as Murray puts it, we should not ask a text to bear a meaning that it cannot sustain. Now, you can already see how this applies to Romans 4:3.
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The irony is that Prince Harry was not speaking to the UN as someone who was elected by the people, nor as someone who had made his own way in life. Rather he was there because of the greatest white privilege of all – being brought up in the Royal Family! He can hardly speak as the democratic representative of the people.

When King Saul prophesied at Naioth at Ramah, the people were so surprised that it became a proverbial saying: “Is Saul also among the prophets?”
I thought of this when listening to Prince Harry’s speech to the UN last week. He spoke movingly in his sermon – for sermon it was – of his mother and of Nelson Mandela. But then he moved into specific political and moral issues where he delivered the ‘gospel’ according to progressive doctrine. His three points were climate change, disinformation and abortion.
A prophet declares the word of the Lord, so let’s see how prophetic Harry was. On climate change, as with the other list of disasters he mentioned, he spoke of how he understood and knew people’s pain. He was certainly right to point out that it is the poor who bear the brunt, not only of climate change, but also the measures taken by the wealthy to combat it.
Think for example of the people of Sri Lanka, whose super wealthy president decided to enamour himself to his WEF admirers by banning fertilisers. As a result, crops failed, people went hungry, riots ensued, and he was forced to flee the country.
Prince Harry never has to worry about heating or cooling his Californian mansion, or how much trips home to the the UK to see his family will cost. Or indeed, how many holidays he and Meghan can have. His ability to empathise with those who cannot afford heating bills or expensive food is somewhat limited.
Harry on Abortion
Given he was standing on the same ‘green’ ground as his father, Harry obviously felt safe to weigh in with his considered opinion and calculated empathy. But it was when he turned to the politics of his new home country that he displayed a lack of political awareness and of moral probity.Comparing the war in Ukraine with the ruling of the US Supreme Court on abortion, he pronounced that this was “a global assault on democracy and freedom”, and an erosion of constitutional rights.
This is the same Prince Harry who pronounced that the constitutional right to freedom of speech was “bonkers”. Perhaps he has discovered a newfound respect for the US constitution? If so, he should read it before making pronouncements on the world stage.
The US constitution does not mention abortion and there is no constitutional right within it.
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