Pragmatism Isn’t the Problem
In The Devil’s Dictionary, the satirist Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) defined dishonesty as “an important element of commercial success” (p. 85).
While this definition is cynical, it’s not wrong. One can only wonder what Bierce would say if he witnessed the state of today’s church.
You don’t have to look far to see dishonesty in the church. In the US, concert music and TED-style talks take the place of reverent worship and faithful biblical exposition. Across the globe, roaming “apostles” skip from one downtrodden, developing nation to another, lining their pockets with each staged signs-and-wonders crusade.
But the problem isn’t only external—it’s not just the bad guys and heretics out there. The problem lurks in our own hearts.
It’s the small-town pastor who, rubbing shoulders with bigshots at a conference, puffs his chest and rounds up when asked about his church’s weekly attendance. It’s the nonprofit that parrots the world’s marketing lingo of inclusiveness and “justice” to hit that Gen Z target audience. It’s the overseas worker tempted to cook the books on the “decisions for Christ” column in the annual report—after all, who would know?
Few of us are above these temptations. We must diagnose the problem. But we must also take great care to not misdiagnose it.
One common diagnosis is pragmatism.
We are too utilitarian—we do what we think works. We tweak our language to avoid gospel offense. We offer entertainment because it seems to grow the church, reasoning that more bodies in pews means more changed lives. We focus on results more than faithfulness.
Worldly, pragmatic methods in ministry are simply rotten fruit on a sickly vine.
But a missionary friend of mine recently challenged this diagnosis. “Pragmatism isn’t the problem,” he told me. He has seen similar problems firsthand in the Islamic world, where pioneering missionaries in risky countries, backed by enthusiastic supporters, face daily temptation to exaggerate the fruit of their efforts.
I asked him what he thinks the real problem is. “Fear of man,” he replied.
He pinpointed the root issue as the desire to be well-regarded. Like the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day, those in ministry who justify dishonesty and compromise the Lord’s work love “the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God” (John 12:43). Worldly, pragmatic methods in ministry are simply rotten fruit on a sickly vine.
If my missionary friend is right, then our ailment goes far deeper than our North American obsession with results. Idolatry of human approval affects all of us to some extent—even we, who oppose using shrewd, worldly marketing tactics to grow our ministries. At times, we all prefer an “atta boy” or “atta girl” to “well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:23). We covet favor with the guild or with teammates above the unpopularity produced by fidelity to Scripture.
Let’s assume my friend is right. What do we do?
In C.S. Lewis’ lecture “The Inner Ring,” addressed to a group of young, up-and-comers, he expounds the danger of our lust to belong to an elite in-group:
“The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. It will not shape that professional policy or work up that professional influence which fights for the profession as a whole against the public: nor will it lead to those periodic scandals and crises which the Inner Ring produces. But it will do those things which that profession exists to do and will in the long run be responsible for all the respect which that profession in fact enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain.”
It is one thing for us to reject worldly pragmatism in ministry. But we should not commend ourselves unless we also wage war against our own lust to belong to the in-group—whether to the pragmatic mainstreamorto its ranks of critics.
For the missionary, pastor, or church planter, faithfulness in ministry may mean displeasing a colleague, a mentor, or a training group that embraces more pragmatic methods. If our solitary aim is to please him who enlisted us (2 Tim. 2:4), we will do well.
Faithfulness is its own reward.
May we fear God more than men.
This article was originally published here
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Bindergate: An Appeal for Honesty and Integrity in the SBC
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has a new scandal to add to its tragically growing list. Let’s call this one “bindergate,” because a black notebook binder with a red and white identification page is at the center of it. The following information is printed on that page:
2021 Resolutions Committee
James Merritt
June 2021
That binder evidently contains private emails that I exchanged with James Merritt (who chaired the Resolutions Committee that recommended resolutions to the 2021 SBC annual meeting that met in Nashville, June 15-16). I wrote those emails in response to Dr. Merritt reaching out to me with specific questions before the 2021 annual meeting. In an April 20 email he asked me two questions:
1) What are your specific concerns concerning Critical Race Theory and how the Southern Baptist Convention has handled this issue? 2) What specific things would you want our committee to hear from you?
I answered him as directly and helpfully as I could the very next day. We exchanged a couple of more brief emails before the annual meeting.
I had not given much thought to those email exchanges until a reporter for the Tennessean newspaper notified me a few weeks ago that he had obtained copies of them and intended to use them in a story he was writing on the SBC. Liam Adams asked to speak with me several times for the story. For a variety of reasons I never responded to his request (I was beyond cell service part of the time; I don’t trust mainstream media; and I find it somewhat distasteful that a reporter would make private emails public without at least asking permission to do so).
Let me quickly note that I am not concerned that Adams quoted my private correspondence. I long ago decided that I would operate as if every word I say in any context is being recorded and that anything I write anywhere will be made public. After all, a day is coming when I will give an account for all my words to a much higher court than that of mere human opinion. My Lord said, “On the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak” (Matthew 12:36).
So, I am not worried about my private words being made public in this way. I just think it is a slimy thing to do. Evidently it fits within the journalistic standards of the Tennessean, but I would like to think that Christians would have higher standards of ethics than that. Of course, while I might like to, I know better than to actually think that when it comes to certain SBC elitists. After all, this ain’t my first rodeo.
After Adams informed me in his third email to me (on November 18) that he intended to quote from my private emails to James Merritt, I contacted Dr. Merritt and asked him if he knew he had given my emails to Adams or if he knew how Adams had obtained them. Dr. Merritt called me the next day, while I was in Tennessee (which, as former ERLC ethicist, Philip Bethancourt reminded Southern Baptists is a “one-party consent” state when it comes to capturing audio secretly). He assured me that he had not given those emails to the reporter and that he had “no idea” how Adams obtained them. That conversation was the first time that I heard the word “binder” in connection with all of these shenanigans. Dr. Merritt said that Adams kept bringing up “some kind of binder” during an interview that he gave to Adams. Dr. Merritt assured me that he didn’t know what Adams’ meant by that.
In the story that Adams wrote for the Tennessean (which can be accessed here without a paywall) he states, “The documents, included in a binder that once belonged to James Merritt, the chair of the 2021 resolutions committee, include resolutions submitted on the subject of race and emails between top Southern Baptist leaders, including Greear.” I have since learned that a staff member from the ERLC is usually assigned to help the Resolutions Committee and that Executive Committee staff members would have access to their work room. Perhaps one of them could provide more information about this fiasco. I have also learned that it is not uncommon for each member of the SBC Resolutions Committee to have a binder with information related to their work at the annual meeting. That is understandable. What I do not yet understand is why the binder with James Merritt’s name on it and my private emails in it was given to the press.
In recent days we have heard a great deal about the need for transparency in the SBC. Calls for such have come from various sectors of the convention, including from the current SBC President. I generally agree with such calls. There was a time when Southern Baptist leaders tried to live by the old adage, “trust the Lord and tell the people.” Today that principle has morphed into “forget the Lord, just trust us, people.” But no association of churches can survive where the leaders call for trust from but eschew genuine accountability to the people they are supposed to lead. Much less can it survive when there is little or no fear of God demonstrated by leadership.
So, in the interest of transparency, and with full confidence in the power of the gospel to forgive any sin that may be involved and to strengthen any forgiveness that may need to be granted, I am asking for those who know how this binder made its way into the hands of the press to step forward and tell the truth. Southern Baptists have a right to know how something like this could happen. I have been informed that there are some whose salaries are paid by Southern Baptist churches who are in positions to know or at least to find out.
Perhaps the Lord would bless such a simple step of honesty and integrity to begin a deeply needed work of renewal among the people known as Southern Baptists.Follow Tom Ascol:
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A Report on What’s Going on Among Colorado Baptists
Earlier this summer, after the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) convened in Nashville, a number of SBC pastors in Colorado reached out to fellow pastor, Sean Cole (Emmanuel Baptist, Sterling, CO). We expressed our concerns of what we understood to be the trajectory of the SBC. Two issues in particular grieved us. First, seeing God’s good design dishonored and distorted by women serving in the role of pastors. Second, seeing the tentacles of the godless ideology of Critical Race Theory unnecessarily divide Christ’s blood-bought people. Those distortions and those tentacles were being observed in our own backyard.
We saw it on SBC church websites here in Colorado that listed women as co-lead pastors and women preaching before Christ’s gathered church. We saw it in publicly posted essays written by Colorado pastors using the divisive language of CRT.
We decided to address this publicly at our annual convention of churches using the resolution process. I wrote a resolution entitled, Resolution on the Title, Office, and Function of Pastor (which would be labeled Resolution #3 by the Resolutions Committee). Pastor Cole modified a resolution submitted in Nashville for here in Colorado entitled, Resolution on the Incompatibility of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality with Scripture and the Baptist Faith and Message (which would be labeled Resolution #4).
Pastor Cole submitted these to the Resolutions Committee several weeks before our convention that was held October 11-12.
Days before the convention, the committee went public with the resolutions. They significantly modified Resolution #3 that addressed the office and function of pastor. Where I had clearly stated the office, role and function of pastor is for biblically qualified males only, the committee changed it to state the qualification of being a male applies only to the “senior/lead” pastor.
After talking with fellow pastors, I agreed to offer amendments the committee’s Resolution #3.. My proposed changes included striking any reference to “senior/lead pastor” and inserting the statement that “WHEREAS there is no biblical distinction of senior pastor under whose authority a female may serve in the office or function of pastor.”
To the Resolutions Committee credit and the acting president of the convention, they played fair. Knowing pastors were preparing to challenge the resolution as it was presented, they asked for my amendments in advance which were then posted on screen for the messengers to see.
As expected, my amendments were challenged—by a well-known pastor. A couple of messengers came to the microphone in support of what I proposed. Pastor Cole spoke with boldness, telling the messengers of the conversations he’s had with pastors who are greatly concerned about this matter and are “close to walking. What we want is clarity in our Convention,” he told the messengers.
Others apparently wanted clarity as well. When it came time to vote on the amendments, several messengers requested a counted vote, which the acting president granted. In place of a voice vote, messengers were asked to stand if they were in favor of the amendments. The amendments passed. I do not have the official tally, but several have estimated it was about 60/40. The final vote on the amended resolution was a voice vote and it passed with a majority.
Three summary observations
First, the chairman of the Resolutions Committee told the messengers the committee could change submitted resolutions to “what we feel reflects the heart of the Colorado Convention.” I can only assume that’s why the committee changed mine. What I find telling is that while Resolution #3 was saturated in Scriptural arguments and included multiple biblical references the committee changed it according to ‘what we feel reflects the heart of the Colorado Convention.’ That wording reflects the pragmatism that has plagued the SBC for decades. Further, the final vote suggests that the Resolutions Committee is not as in tune with Colorado Baptist churches as they thought they were.
Second, it was greatly encouraging that messengers wanted clarity about the title, office and function of pastor for our Colorado churches. That the ‘aye/nay’ method of voting on a non-binding resolution got changed to an actual count—at the request of messengers—indicates that for many present, this topic is no shibboleth, nor an insignificant matter. I rejoice that messengers were willing to challenge their fellow Baptists to clearly indicate what they believe about who is qualified to serve as pastors.
Third, where to from here? The pastor who had opposed my amendments from the floor, afterwards conveyed to Pastor Sean and others of us who had decided to address these matters, that “the convention has spoken and we will move forward and in that light joining hearts and hands and heads to continue to make an impact in Colorado.” I am grateful for this statement and look forward to Colorado Baptists working together to impact our state for Christ as we joyfully operate under the authority of God’s Word.
What will “moving forward” look like? Colorado Baptists already have a confession of faith that states the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture. We claim that we are already convinced that “Scripture is totally true and trustworthy… and is the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried.”
Will our state Credentials Committee be assigned the duty of lovingly confronting Colorado churches that have women identified as pastors or operating in the function of elders/overseers? When Colorado Baptist churches have women stand before Christ’s gathered church and speak in such a way that is authoritative and doctrinal in content (i.e., preaching), will sister churches call them to repent? Afterall, “the convention has spoken.” Is that what “joining hearts and hands and hands” will look like?
May God give our churches grace and clarity and courage to be the pillar and support of the truth (I Timothy 3:15).
Resolution #3 Resolution on the Title, Office, and Function of Pastor
Adopted by the Colorado Baptist Convention, 2021
WHEREAS, our Creator God has blessed His image bearers with fulfilling His mandate for them by creating them as male and female (Genesis 1:26-28), and,
WHEREAS, males and females, while equal image bearers of God, have been given by Him unique roles, abilities, and responsibilities, defined biologically and by the creation order, (Genesis 1-3; I Timothy 2:12-13), and,
WHEREAS, since sin has entered the world through Adam and sin spread to all, defying, distorting, and defiling in every generation both our perception of maleness and femaleness and our unique roles, abilities and responsibilities as males and females (Gen 3:16b, Romans 1:24-32; Ephesians 2:1-3), and,
WHEREAS, both God’s Law and His Gospel reveal and confirm the blessing of the distinctions of males and females and summon sinners to repent of their defying, distorting, and defiling of what He has blessed (I Timothy 1:8-11; I Corinthians 6:9-11; I Thessalonians 4:1-5; Ephesians 4:17-24; 5:22-33), and,
WHEREAS, the Church’s Head, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, has commissioned His local church to be the pillar and support of the revealed truth of God (I Timothy 3:14-15; I Peter 2:9-12; I Thessalonians 2:13), and,
WHEREAS, our Lord Jesus Christ through His apostles has decreed those males who meet specific qualifications shall minister in His local church in the office and function of pastor (overseer, elder) (I Tim 2:12-15; 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9; I Peter 5:1-5; Acts 14:23), and,
WHEREAS, this distinction of the office and function being for males only is rooted in the creation order of males and females prior to sin having entered the world (I Timothy 2:12-15; Genesis 2-3), and,
WHEREAS, there is no biblical distinction of senior pastor under whose authority a female may serve in the office or function of pastor, and,
WHEREAS, autonomous Baptist churches, cooperating according to the doctrinal convictions expressed in the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, which states: (the local church’s) scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture, and therefore be it
RESOLVED, Colorado Baptists Churches shall commit themselves to proclaiming, explaining, and modeling the Divine blessing of image bearers being male and female and their unique roles, abilities, and responsibilities, and be it finally
RESOLVED, Colorado Baptist Churches, will strive to be the biblically rooted pillar and support of the truth in our state and communities, by reserving the title, office, and function of pastor, elder, overseer for males only who meet the qualifications of I Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9; I Peter 5:1-5.Tweet Share
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The Beauty of Duty
Duty is defined as “that which one is morally or legally bound to do.” That defines duty in an absolute sense. Another definition is “action or conduct required by one’s profession or position.” That might, often does, involve absolutes, but the particular actions required are relative to the skill, qualification, interpersonal relations, and professional office of a person. My duties to my children are different from my duties to the children of others but are not on that account less than absolute.
On occasion, public speakers, including preachers of the gospel, will belittle “duty” as if it is an inferior motivation for action or compliance to standards. Delight is seen as a superior motivation while duty is—Well, if I have to do it, OK—synonymous with begrudging action. One brings his wife flowers because it is his delight to do so, for he is delighted with her. If he gives her flowers presenting them to her out of a sense of duty, this is connoted as a lackluster action deserving scorn. But this tendency to diminish the excellence of a sense of duty is misguided. It is a moral error. The husband’s duty is to love his wife as his own body, for he who loves his wife loves himself (Ephesians 5:28; Genesis 2:22, 23). To treat one’s wife tenderly, to look to her desires and happiness, to bring her flowers, to live with her according to knowledge is to love her, to delight in her, and at the same time to do one’s duty.
The bifurcation between duty and delight is one of the sinister results of the fall. That one can feel duty to be a burden is one evidence of how the flesh lusts against the Spirit. In Galatians 5, Paul investigates the relationship of the law to love and the operations of the Spirit. Through love, we serve one another (13). By the flesh, we “bite and devout one another” (15). The whole law, that is, the whole duty of one person to another, is fulfilled in this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” So how does one overcome the antipathy of the flesh to the law of love? “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh” (16). The Spirit, law, and love unite in giving expression to human duty. When one walks by the Spirit and bears the fruit that the Spirit produces (5:22, 23), he does nothing contrary to law but walks aligned with the law. God’s law constitutes the duty of man and at the same time is the perfect expression of love.
I will not seek to investigate vigorously the relation between benevolent love and complacent love but only this. God loves sinners out of benevolent love as far as his knowledge of their sin and rebellion is concerned and their consequent worthiness of eternal wrath. There is nothing lovely in us that would give God pleasure in loving us. He does nurture, however, a complacency in his unmerited favor toward sinners, for he does this to the praise of his glorious grace and the demonstration of the “depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God” (Ephesians 1:6; Romans 11:33). His benevolence toward us, therefore, finds it foundation in true complacence toward himself. On our part, both benevolent love and complacent love is due to God, first, foremost, and unstinted and then to all other things on his account. He has the most of being and is in fact the only thing that has being in and of himself, the only self-existent entity, and infinitely so, in all of reality—so benevolence is due him above all things. In addition, his being not only is large and indestructible but is beautiful, the sum of all goodness. Jonathan Edwards argues, “For as God is infinitely the greatest Being, so he is allowed to be infinitely the most beautiful and excellent.” Real virtue then, the faithful expression of duty, “must necessarily have a supreme love to God both of benevolence and complacence” at its core. All is derived from him and is absolutely dependent on him and his “being and beauty are, as it were, the sum and comprehension of all existence and excellence” [Works, BOT 1:125]. God’s comprehensive and infinite excellence, therefore, establishes the consuming duty of all intelligent creatures to love him in seamless devotion of all our parts.
Resistance to duty is resistance to moral perfection and resistance to love—both for God and man, neighbor and family. Nurturing selfishness and personal pleasure at the cost of loving service equals lawlessness rather than obedience, flesh-following rather than Spirit-walking, irregularity rather than duty. In the unfallen state of man, obedience to the law written on the heart was the supreme delight of Adam and Eve. To expand their vision of God’s attributes and to be more maturely conformed to his beautiful perfection was the goal that drove their obedience. This moral propensity was used perversely by Satan to entice them to disobedience—“His mercy is greater than his law and this act is the very path to be like him.” Such reasoning deceived Eve to take an independent path to these goals and brought about the fall. As uncorrupted image-bearers, however, their duty was their delight and the prospect of unwavering obedience their true happiness. Andrew Fuller stated in his confession of faith, “I believe if Adam or any holy being had had the making of a law for himself, he would have made just such an one as God’s law is; for it would be the greatest of hardships to a holy being not to be allowed to love God with all his heart.” In the unfallen state, they loved the duty that was theirs; the obligation that was perfectly commensurate with the righteousness set before them was no burden but their holy hope.
Presently, fallen creatures have no regard for God. Instead, they shut off from their contemplation the power and perfection that should be obvious from the witness of every created thing around them. Duty is reprehensible because the concept of divine beauty, power, and prerogative conflicts with the corrupt mind in its self-centered, rather than God-centered, goals. If any sinners are to be converted, each must come to grips with the distance between their affections and their duties.
The new birth involves a reconciliation of affections with duties. The faith that adheres to justifying righteousness approves God’s righteous law, righteous judgment, righteous atonement, and righteous reconciliation. Saving faith admits that our duty toward such righteous expressions of divine goodness infinitely transcends and is radically other than our pursuit. Sanctification progresses in proportion to the affections’ realignment with intrinsic duties. Again, Andrew Fuller presses this truth into a confessional article: “I believe that such is the excellence of this way of salvation, that every one who hears or has opportunity to hear it proclaimed in the gospel is bound [italics mine] to repent of his sin, believe, approve, and embrace it with all his heart; to consider himself, as he really is, a vile lost sinner; to reject all pretensions to life in any other way; and to cast himself upon Christ, that he may be saved in this way of God’s devising. This I think to be true faith, which whoever have, I believe will certainly be saved.” One’s being “bound” to these responses mean that every stage and trait of justifying faith arises from duty. Reconciliation with God necessarily involves reconciliation of our highest desire with our highest duty.
When one grasps accurately the moral loveliness that requires the devotion of all moral beings, it is impossible to dismiss duty as an inferior motivation for action; rather one sees duty as a moral disposition, an aesthetic judgment, a true perception of fitness, a consent to perfect being, and a joyful submission to expressions of order, law, love, moral symmetry, infallible purpose, transcendent wisdom, and divine revelation. Duty permeates the entire calling of the minister of the gospel and the message that he preaches. Again, listen to the confession of Andrew Fuller:
I believe it is the duty of every minister of Christ plainly and faithfully to preach the gospel to all who will hear it; and as I believe the inability of men to spiritual things to be wholly of the moral, and therefore of the criminal kind, and that it is their duty to love the Lord Jesus Christ and trust in him for salvation though they do not; I therefore believe free and solemn addresses, invitations, calls, and warning to them to be not only consistent, but directly adapted, as means, in the hand of the Spirit of God, to bring them to Christ. I consider it as a part of my duty which I could not omit without being guilty of the blood of souls.
Why does Fuller say that it is the sinner’s “duty to love the Lord Jesus Christ and trust in him for salvation.” The first concerns the fullness of the law; before all things and with all the energy of the mind, the will, the understanding, and the affections the Lord Jesus, in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells, is to be loved. Having fallen short of that in Adam and in personal transgression, sinners need a path to righteousness and thus life. In Jesus that righteousness has been perfected and the merit of eternal life is found in him alone. A complete resting of the soul on his work (trust) as alone worthy unites the soul to him. He is the Lord, and, also, he has loved the Lord his Father with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength. He is the goal of the law and he is the perfect doer of the law. The duty, therefore, to love him absolutely and to trust him for salvation is based on the same moral excellence involved in both.
Duty, in reality, as indicated above is prior to love. The focus of love is determined by the duty implied in the excellence of the object. The greater the excellence, the greater the duty; the greater the duty, the higher and more focused the love. The infinitely perfect being calls forth our devotion and admiration; the law of such a being establishes our duty. That all things exist by his will and serve his purpose gives us varying degrees of duty toward all that he made and sustains. “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created” (Revelation 4:11). Though varied in degree, all duty is absolute. We have a duty to our pets as well as our parents, but the latter is of a higher degree of duty that the former. How the glory of God is manifest in each thing and in each relationship determines the intensity of duty involved. Food and drink are good and are partaken with gratitude and to God’s glory and with a fully-approving conscience, but may be omitted for the sake of the conscience of a brother (1 Corinthians 10:29-33). Fundamental to love, therefore, is the level of duty that defines each relation.
Articles in this edition of The Founders Journal treat those areas of duty that are of the highest order. The first is from the opening chapter of John L. Dagg’s Manual of Theology and explores the duty to love God. On this duty hang the reality and peculiar relevance of all other duties.
Another article by Paul Taylor deals with the duties of church membership. Christ has died for the church, has called and gifted every member and united all these members in one common goal to achieve the “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” {Ephesians 4:13). There is a duty, therefore, that each part of this body do its work which “causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:16).
Another article, by Ryan Denton, concerns the ongoing witness of the church, corporately and individually, with a view to the conversion of sinners. This is to occur until the final elect one is called. Benjamin Keach stated that the “task and calling of the minister as an ambassador” is “to persuade sinners to receive and embrace the Lord Jesus.” The truths of Christ’s seeking and finding all of his people should stir up ministers “to do their utmost in order to the conversion of sinners.” They should not be weary, nor faint, nor be discouraged even when reproached by men and Satan for “God has appointed preaching as his great ordinance, for the … conversion of lost sinners.”[i] And though the minister has no power either of virtue or persuasion to change a heart and bring a sinner home, but only Christ alone by his Spirit can do that, nevertheless, ministers “are to do what they can, they are to invite them, press, them, entreat and persuade them to come.”[ii] A faithful ministry “will do what the Lord commands them to do” with the confidence that “in God’s heart is room enough for millions of souls; and in God’s house there is not only bread enough, and to spare, but room enough also.”[iii] A minister of Christ, in order “to accomplish his Ambassy, and to bring the King’s Enemies to accept of Peace,” must pray, entreat, and “beseech Sinners to be reconciled to God.” In fact, like the apostle who cried tears over the lost, “Faithful Ministers art willing to spend their Lives to win Souls to Christ, yea, to die upon the spot to save one poor Sinner.” Ryan Denton reminds us, in Keach-like fashion, that this duty cannot be transcended in demonstrating love to God and man.
Concluding this edition of the Founders Journal is a brief resume of the Nature of True Virtue by Jonathan Edwards. This work is perhaps the most profound discussion on duty—its true beauty and its intrinsic ethical absoluteness—in American evangelical literature. We pray that each of these articles and the impact of the whole will give unction for holiness and faithful service.
[i] Benjamin Keach, Parables., 368-370.
[ii] Keach., 546.
[iii] Keach, 546.