The power of God at work in his word is a power that God intended to be exercised by the faithful ministry of his word. Ministers are sinful people who need to be rebuked, corrected, and shaped by the word that they preach. But, in God’s economy, his plan was always to have sinful people preach it and minister it to others. We must never lose sight of the call to let the word do the work, but never assume that labouring in the word and with the word is a failure to let the word do the work. By God’s incredible grace and mercy, and by his unfathomable power, he wills to work in and through his word as we minister it. 

An Uneasy Relationship with the Scriptures
As we start to explore what it means to tremble at God’s word, I want to suggest that our relationship with the Scriptures as God’s word is more complex than most of us are willing to admit. On the one hand, we know that Scripture is powerful, it is the Word of God. The preacher’s job is to get out of the way so that God’s powerful word can work in the hearts of people. We quote Spurgeon’s famous, ‘Defend the Bible, I’d sooner defend a lion. Just let the truth free and it will defend itself.’ We exhort each other to ‘let the word do the work’ and we share those wonderful stories of people who were converted just by reading Scripture. On this view, we as preachers are in danger of muddying the power and beauty and wonder of Scripture by anything that we say and do. Applying the word of God can feel like an activity where we move beyond the Scriptures and are taking responsibility for people’s godliness into our hands rather than leaving it in the hands of the Holy Spirit. However, it is easy to parrot the ‘let the word for the work’ line and naively misunderstand the power and responsibility we have in ministry. After all, we choose the books of the Bible we teach and the chunks they are taught in. Additionally, years are invested in Bible college education developing exegetical skills. Why do we invest so much time and money if the preacher is doing nothing? A moment’s thoughtful reflection should reveal that there are complex ities in what we espouse and what we do. I think we have what I might call an ‘uneasy’ relationship with Scripture.
What does it mean to be faithful Bible teachers? How powerful is God’s word? And what part do we play in bringing that word to bear and ministering it in people’s lives?
God’s Powerful Word
What God’s Word does
A quick survey of the Scriptures reveals many ways that the power of God’s word is articulated. God’s word creates. God said let there be and there was. Ex Nihilo. Out of nothing. God did not fashion the world out of what already existed. He spoke, and things that were not, suddenly were. God is the creator, and we are the creatures. God is powerful enough, simply by a word, to create. The same word that creates also reveals. The God who spoke creation into being spoke to that creation. He made himself known. He explained himself to us, his world to us and he explained us to us (1 Cor 2:11; Rom 7:7). The word which creates and reveals must also be the word that judges. A holy and pure God cannot speak to fallen and sinful creatures without them experiencing the awfulness of sin and rebellion against God (Heb 4:12-13). It is with relief that the same word that creates, reveals, and judges, is also the word which raises the dead (John 11:43-44; 1 Pet 1:23). The Word which made something out of nothing is the same Word that brings life from the dead. God’s people are declared right, forgiven, cleansed, and made holy by the work of Christ brought to bear in our lives through the Word of God. And so, the word of God is powerful enough to relate us rightly to God and to each other, and to transform us to be like the one who was raised from the dead as our Lord and friend. We believe that the word of God is powerful, but how does it do all these things? How does it reveal, judge, relate us to God and transform us?
How God’s Word does What it does
God’s Relationship with His Word
When we talk about God and his word, we speak of a relationship that is utterly unique in our experience. God’s word is not like our word in at least two very significant ways. Firstly, his words always represent him truly. There is no gap between what he says and who he is. Secondly, God is always present when his word is spoken. This is a very big difference from us. When we speak, our words can be reported by others. They can come in a letter, an email or a text that can be read and interpreted apart from our presence. But whenever and wherever God’s word is read, God is there. He is there working for salvation or for judgement.
For both reasons, God’s word is full of his power and goodness. God’s word does what God does because it comes with all the power, authority and goodness of God who is at work in his world. We live in a world where goodness and authority are opposed. In fact, goodness is what is necessary to stand up to authority because, by and large, authority is viewed as evil. Authority restricts my autonomy, and my humanness. And so, what is good is what thwarts authority and allows autonomy to thrive. Of course, we know from the Scriptures, that God’s world works in exactly the opposite way. The acceptance of God’s authority is fundamental to goodness because God is fundamentally good. There is no alternate truth, no container of righteousness, no abstract definition of good that stands over and against God in order that we might judge God; no, biblically, good is what God is. He is the origin and definition of all that is good. We live in a world that wants to define goodness apart from God, and God will ultimately judge it. But this also means that when he speaks into our world, we ought to expect people to reject His goodness at every turn. This is always the way the world has been: Satan questioned God’s goodness and Adam and Eve rejected God’s authority.
The prophets spoke and were scorned. We live in the last days when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths (2 Tim 4:3-4). God’s goodness and authority are mutually entwined in his person. They are deeply related issues in all of Scripture, fundamental to our understanding of sin and the human condition. In our sin we have rejected God’s authority and in so doing rejected God’s goodness. Nevertheless, God’s word has the power to judge us, raise us, relate us to him and transform us because God is present with his word and his word never fails to reveal him perfectly – in all his goodness and power.
God Speaks Intelligible Words
They are not words that mean nothing until the Spirit changes their meaning in our hearing.
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The opening verses of John’s Gospel introduce to us the unspeakably glorious reality of God’s Triune being, and to its unfathomableness. Before all worlds existed, before anything was, God was! And staggeringly, he was a community, a fellowship: ‘and the Word was with (“face to face with”) God’! The Father was with the Son, and the Son was with the Father. And together they were with the Holy Spirit. 

What would you say is the fundamental doctrine of the Christian Faith? For many of us, the instinctive answer would be, ‘justification by faith alone, in Christ alone’. There is no doubt, or should be no doubt, that this is a biblical and evangelical fundamental. Didn’t Martin Luther describe justification by faith alone, in Christ alone, as ‘The article of a standing or falling church’! We surely understand what Luther is saying. Could anything be more important than knowing how God brings judgment-deserving sinners into a right and reconciled relationship with himself?
Equally surely, however, we cannot say that justification by faith alone is the fundamental doctrine of the Christian Faith. That honour rightly and surely belongs to the doctrine of the Trinity. God himself is the fundamental truth of the Christian Faith. He is Truth itself. He is the Creator, Sustainer, Initiator and Sovereign Lord of all that is. God does not exist for us, we exist for him. Paul’s declaration in Romans 11:36 wonderfully makes the point: ‘For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.’
The pre-eminence of God’s Triune being is heralded in a number of ways in the Scriptures. In Genesis l we see the Triune God in creation: God, his Word, and his Spirit, together bringing into being worlds and star systems out of nothing, and creating man and woman in their own image. Who we are is a personal and visual reminder to us every moment of our existence, of the priority of the Triune God. It is surely not without significance, to say no more, that God should disclose the Triunity of his being to us in the Bible’s opening chapter. All that is has its being from, and is a reflection of the Triune God. In the New Testament, we see the Triune God working in harmony to effect the salvation of sinners: The Father purposing, the Son saving and the Spirit applying (though all actively at work at every moment and at every phase of redemption).
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Written by James R. Wood |
Monday, October 10, 2022
We see a pattern in scripture and church history: when God raises up prophets, they meet fierce opposition from religious establishment and those devoted to the idols they critique; but true prophets stand firm and soon many begin to follow.

On the Perils of a Winsome Ministry
Introduction
Pastors have a very difficult job. Besides the common burdens of preaching and soul-care, the cultural pressures of our day through which they are guiding others are confusing and seem to be shifting at breakneck speed. And many, both inside and outside of the church, place conflicting demands on them as to what their job entails.
I care so much about pastors, first of all, because I have been one for most of my adult life and, second, because I now teach undergraduate students in religion, many of whom consider entering vocational ministry.
Over the past few years, many pastors and Christian ministry leaders let a lot of people down. It is my contention that the winsome model was a major contributor to what led them astray.
For instance, as I mentioned in my previous American Reformer piece, I think this over-orientation to how Christians are perceived by the broader culture led many pastors to being a bit too accommodating of the media and public health officials surrounding COVID. Not only were they unduly trusting of these figures, but they also castigated reasonable voices of critique. But even worse than this, many of these Christian leaders mediated the messaging that any dissent from the COVID regime was a failure to love one’s neighbor, thus binding the consciences of Christians and stoking division in the church.
Fearing how Christians might appear to the outside world, many Christian leaders failed their congregations. Similar things could be discussed about race issues or LGBT issues (and the whole idea of “pronoun hospitality” or the Revoice affair). How does this winsome framework lead ministers astray? What concepts should we be more attuned to?
The Perils of Winsomeness
Before we get there, let me recap the critique. What I describe with this catchall label of “winsomeness” is the package approach of cultural engagement that seeks above all to minimize offense so as to maximize openness to the gospel. There are biblical imperatives related to winsomeness that we can never abandon.
However, there are other aspects of the biblical vision that seem to get muted or downplayed by the winsome advocates. Too often winsomeness translates into “niceness.” This, I believe, is a sentimentalized reduction of the biblical vision.
Also, it sets up leaders and those they lead for naïveté in a world more hostile to Christian moral norms. In our increasingly post-Christian culture, truthful love will be met with hostility and be called unloving, “unwinsome.” If we are overly concerned with how we are received by others, then it will be tempting to think, no matter how nice we have been, that we are in the wrong, and thus doubt our convictions. Many will be ill-prepared to say no to things they need to be rejected and opposed.
Prodigal Politics
One more concept I would like to add for consideration is how the winsome framework inclines toward what I would like to call “prodigal politics.” This is obviously a play on Tim Keller’s “prodigal God” thesis, in which he provided a very helpful exposition of the gospel through a creative but faithful reading of the parable of the prodigal son. Keller rightly explains that we must avoid two ditches that lead away from the gospel, each represented by one of the sons in the story: relativistic immorality, represented by the younger son; moralistic religiosity, represented by the elder brother. Winsome-thirdway-ists tend to suggest that our harshest treatment should be directed at the older brothers. This often gets applied by the acolytes of winsomeness to the realm of politics and the culture wars as necessitating harshest criticism of those on the right. So, winsome-thirdway-ists, as is commonly known, “punch right, coddle left.” This plays out among pastors and other Christian leaders who regularly comment on contemporary issues, whether in the pulpit, newsletters, or on social media.
This, I argue, in our day, is a bit misguided—primarily because it fails to accurately recognize which group is disproportionately judgmental and authoritarian in our day. Nate Hochman, in a recent piece in the New York Times, explains that in a previous era Republicans were aggressively pushing a moral order, whereas the progressives were the rebels against the hegemonic pressures. Today, says Hochman, the reverse is true. It is the left which is the “schoolmarm of American public life, and the right is associated with the gleeful violation of convention.” Hochman goes on: “Contemporary social pieties are distinctly left wing, and progressives enforce them with at least as much moral ardor as the most zealous members of the religious right.” Having secured certain “rights,” forces on the left demand widespread, public affirmation and seek to punish those who hold traditional views—views that are now out of step with the new status quo.
The “sides” of the political spectrum don’t break neatly along “elder brother” and “younger brother” lines, at least as commonly understood. The group forcefully imposing an ideological orthodoxy on the populace is no longer the old “Moral Majority;” it is the secular progressive social justice movement.
Therefore, I think this approach of punch right, coddle left, is severely mistaken. This approach fails to respond proportionately to the particular discipleship needs of the day and misses unique evangelistic opportunities which are right in front of us.
What Is to Be Done?
This leads me to my positive proposals. If winsomeness has limits and peculiar temptations, what is needed to counterbalance those? I have repeated across various platforms three key terms particularly required for ministry and public witness today: clarity, courage, and resilience.
I think these are essential for Christian leaders and pastors to focus on in our time. We need prophets who perceive the issues clearly and speak to them plainly. We need courageous shepherds who can help form resilient communities. These categories are behind and underneath the remainder of this essay, which focuses on three key terms: sheep, wolves, and fools.
Protecting Sheep
Throughout scripture, God’s people are referred to as sheep. This includes those who are already in the covenant community, but also those elected but not yet in the visible fold—the lost. I do not intend to develop a comprehensive theology of these categories, but rather to explicate how they help us understand what is needed in ministry today—what opportunities are before us if we pay attention.
In our time of postmodernism, social breakdown, ever-shifting mores, and an increasingly authoritarian left, many feel beat up and confused. We could call these the refugees of the sexual and woke revolutions. They are especially confused by the moral insanity and widespread nonsense that is wreaking havoc on the social order and they are wondering why no one is saying the sane thing, why too few are speaking out in order to make sense amidst of the chaos, to say “no” to insanity and clearly explain the good order to which we can and should conform.
Many Christians and Christian leaders refuse to do this. Often they nuance away clear biblical teachings about moral issues because they don’t want to rock the boat or to look narrow-minded. They assume that addressing these hot-button issues will hinder openness to the gospel message. But this nuance often appears to be overly generous to ideas and developments on the left.
A lot of the refugees are turned off by this. So I think we are missing opportunities here. There are tons of people in the middle of the cultural storms who are crying out for someone to speak clearly, to be a courageous voice of reason.
A recent piece at The Gospel Coalition was quite moving. It included snippets of a conversation between a pastor and an elderly man who had pursued transitioning. The latter was born male and eventually had multiple surgeries to help him present as a woman. His transition did not take away his depression, and he later regretted his decisions. The pastor asked him: “When you were in your 20s, what could I have said to you to get you on the right path?” The man said, “Nothing. But what I did need someone like you to continue telling me what was wrong and what was true. Keep telling people the truth.”
There are evangelistic opportunities here that we should not miss. And on top of this, avoiding clear teachings on the hot-button issues of our days is also foolish. If you mute hard teachings to get persons in the door, you set up a likelihood that you will mute them indefinitely. As A.W. Tozer said: “You win them to what you win them with.” People don’t like to feel that they have been had—that you pulled something on them, tricked them to get them in the door and then later bring up the offensive things in your pastoral shepherding.
This brings us to the second type of sheep: Christian disciples. Faithful Christians are also getting tossed in the cultural waves. They are disoriented, confused, and discouraged. They need encouragement to press on. They need to hear from leaders that they aren’t crazy, and that holding to biblical truths does not make them bigots. The embattled faithful need clear and courageous leadership.
And there are also unfaithful Christians. Those who claim the name of Christ and have accommodated the logic of the world, not just in doctrinal matters, but also moral matters about fundamental issues of nature, sex, etc. There are certain moral matters, not just theological ones, that are out of bounds for Christians.
We need ministers to boldly practice church discipline, as instructed in Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5. Blatant, unrepentant, public sin demands strong rebuke, and if the one who claims the name of Christ persists in such sin, he should be excommunicated. In the Reformed tradition, this usually involves barring such unrepentant sinners from the Lord’s table.
One group that deserves special attention today are members in the church who are involved in government and push radical agendas on sex, gender, and abortion. As I said, there are certain moral positions that are out of bounds for Christians. Members who are living in blatant unrepentant public sin, and political figures who are promoting evil policies, need public discipline.
We can take inspiration from a famous instance in church history of courageous church discipline. In AD 390, emperor Theodosius, in a rage, slaughtered around 7000 people. Bishop Ambrose called him to repent, which Theodosius refused, in response to which Ambrose denied communion to the emperor. Eventually Theodosius did repent, accepting Ambrose’s terms for reconciliation, which included the promotion of a law which required a delay of 30 days before any death sentence passed could be enforced. In front of a crowded congregation, Theodosius took off his imperial robes and asked for forgiveness of his sins. Finally, at a church service on Christmas day, Ambrose administered the sacrament to Theodosius.
This was extremely dangerous for Ambrose. But he was faithful to the vocation, and bravely brought harsh love to the powerful church member. We need ministers to lead with this type of clarity, conviction, and courage.
A recent, high-profile example of what I am advocating is when Archbishop Cordileone instructed Nancy Pelosi to abstain from Holy Communion due to her continued advocacy for abortion. We need to remember, in the words of C.S. Lewis, that “the hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men.” Such actions are directed to bring these figures to repentance and bring about justice in our polities.
I don’t want to name names on this, but a current candidate for Congress is public about being shepherded by one of the famous winsome-thirdway pastors. It recently became known that this candidate has a 100% approval rating from Planned Parenthood. There could be many complicating factors to this story, but with these bare details, this looks like a profound failure of pastoral leadership.
So, pastors and Christian leaders need to be clear and bold to both comfort the faithful and to correct unfaithful disciples. And they need to protect the sheep from wolves.
Fighting Wolves
Throughout scripture, false teachers are identified as wolves, and harsh words are reserved for them. As Kevin DeYoung explains, a wolf is a false teacher who snatches up sheep (John 10:12), draws disciples away from the gospel (Acts 2:28), opposes the truth (2 Tim. 3:8), and leads people to make a shipwreck of the faith and to embrace ungodliness (1 Tim. 1:19-20; 2 Tim. 2:16-17).
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