Jesus taught that the Holy Spirit, otherwise named the Advocate in the NIV, would come from the Father and from Jesus. That this Advocate the Holy Spirit would come after Jesus returned to the Father. This Advocate was going to be sent. The Advocate would not be “God’s JV team” although the Holy Spirit is sometimes thought of in this way. The Advocate would be a tremendous helper, teacher, and witness. Jesus saw his earthly departure and heavenly ascension as a great thing. Jesus’ departure was not to be a source of sorrow, but a source of rejoicing as the helper who would come would come being sent by the Father and Jesus the Son. 

Over the past year I am finding myself over and over going back to the Gospel of John and falling more and more in love with Jesus. I hold no grudges against the other gospels of Matthew, Mark, or Luke. Perhaps this is merely a part of my own journey or a phase, but the way how John reveals who Jesus is grows my affection and confidence in our God.
The verb “send” or “sent” is used 32 times in the Gospel of John. Being “sent” matters as it becomes a question of authority, position, power, and jurisdiction. Think of some children playing together. One of them decides to begin climbing a fence. “Hey, you aren’t allowed to do that!” says one of the other children. “Oh yeah? Who sent you to be in charge?” retorts the climber.
Being sent by someone carries with it weight. Representatives act on behalf of others who otherwise are not present. Those who are sent often bear a message, or act on behalf of the sending party. In John’s Gospel the issue of who sent Jesus is one that continually comes up. “πέμπω” (Pempo is how you pronounce this ancient Greek word) is the word that gets used to denote being sent, or sending.
30 out of the 32 uses of this word are by Jesus (the other two instances are people questioning John the Baptist in 1:22 and John the Baptist in 1:33). While teaching Jesus would frequently refer to the one who sent him:
22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him. (Jn 5:22–23)
36 “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me. (Jn 5:36)

38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. (Jn 6:38)

16 But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. (Jn 8:16)

24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. (Jn 14:24)

5 but now I am going to him who sent me. (Jn 16:5)

Jesus was continually referring, revealing, and teaching about the one who sent him. In this way Jesus was sent.

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The pastor’s ministry does not replace mine; it refines mine. It makes our ministry better, more effective. Your pastor equips you for the work of ministry, for the building up the body of Christ into mature manhood (Ephesians 4:12–13). This ministry finds some expression on Sunday mornings as you serve, you prepare, and you exercise your own gifts and acts of love within your local body. Much of the best ministry in healthy churches happens by those who never hold a microphone.

The first step is to survive the coordinated attacks from the children. An ex-nihilo stain suddenly appears on my daughter’s dress. An episode from my son responding to his sister’s “help.” A well-placed plastic Lego planted strategically at the bottom of the steps. And of course, a soiled-through diaper just as we head for the door.
Safely in the car, we prepare to play our part of our church’s ministry for that Sunday’s gathering. I have no formal duties this week — I am not preaching or welcoming or giving the prayer of thanksgiving — but I ready myself and my family for ministry nonetheless.
A worship song plays. Swerving along the main road cratered as the moon, we arrive at the chosen traffic light signaling time to pray for the service. The music pauses, and a hush falls on the car.
Father, please be with us as we worship you in spirit and in truth. Bless the pastor to preach your word with power. Give us ears to hear and obey your word. Have mercy on your beloved people. Let us see Christ. If any do not truly know you, save them. And Lord, prepare us now to be a blessing to your people.
After we park, we turn our energies to greeting the saints and getting all of our kids into the pew.
As the service begins, we focus on the lyrics being sung, asking God to warm our hearts and the hearts of those around us. My two oldest, imitating their parents, throw up their hands. We praise him with our whole person. Lord, accept our songs in your Son. Forgive our coldness and distractions.
As worship continues, my wife and I see some new faces, some faces we have not seen in a while, some faces we have been praying for. We note people we want to make sure to talk to after the service.
The preacher soon mounts the pulpit. O Lord, give him love for your glory, love for your people, love for your word. Bless him to preach as one speaking your oracles. Speak to us through this man.
After the preaching, after the final song and benediction are given, we look around — a big part of our ministry begins. Who would you have us speak with, encourage, welcome to the church, pray for, confront? How do you plan to use us to bless those around us in the pews this week?
Does My Church Need Me?
Here is the main point, the truth that can revolutionize your walk with the Lord and your experience of the local church: If you know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, you have something to contribute to your local church every Sunday morning.
Do you believe that? Do you come not only to receive — which you should — but to also bless?
This has been hard for “normal” Christians to believe ever since the beginning. In the early church, members looked around the house churches in Corinth and saw different usefulness in the Lord, different giftings. Some seemed more essential, and others more dispensable.
Responding to such thinking, Paul writes, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. . .” (1 Corinthians 12:21–22).
Indispensable.
In too many churches today, the feet, hands, and ears say of themselves, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body” (1 Corinthians 12:16) — because we do not preach, teach, or host small group — we are not needed. Hands show up on Sundays, listless, merely to listen to the mouth speak. They rest in the audience, treating the local church as a theater that welcomes spectators to watch more prominent saints do actual ministry.
You are not leading worship. You are not formally greeting, nor praying in the service, nor giving communion. You aren’t ushering, or serving in the nursery, or leading a women’s ministry. What part do you really play?
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In this booklet, Dr. Beisner does not start with ideas from the Social Justice Movement and move from there to God and His Word. Instead, he first understands Scripture as sufficient and authoritative, and uses it to evaluate the Social Justice Movement. In that way, he accurately shows what God and His Word say about the Social Justice Movement, avoiding what the Social Justice Movement says about God and His Word.

In 2018, Dr. E. Calvin Beisner published Social Justice vs. Biblical Justice: How Good Intentions Undermine Justice and Gospel. In his usual scholarly fashion, Beisner analyzes the arguments of the social justice movement that have become especially popular in the last decade.
After Beisner covers what some Christians say is a Biblical principle on wealth redistribution and equalization, with short sections on The Sabbatical Year Law (p. 12), The Jubilee Year Law (14), the sharing of goods at the church in Jerusalem (15), and the Pauline collections for believers who were suffering famine (17), Beisner gives the Biblical definition of justice and the Biblical way it is to be carried out.
Dr. Beisner is especially careful to avoid eisegesis, “making Scripture align with his own thoughts,” and exegetes, “making his own thoughts align with Scripture,” what the Bible says about justice. He shows four Biblical criteria for justice (20-23).

Justice requires impartiality and equal application.
Justice requires rendering to each his due.
Justice requires proportionality between acts and rewards or punishments.
Justice requires conformity to the standard God set forth in His law.

These four things imply that a person has rights. Beisner distinguishes negative “rights against harm” from positive “rights to certain benefits” (23). “Properly understood, rights are not guarantees that something will be provided for us but guarantees that what is ours will not be unjustly taken from us. That is, properly speaking, rights are not positive but negative” (24-25). That means, in the case of a positive right, there is no way of knowing what a person has any right to. Different eras and different geographic locations present differing needs. If a person has a right to food and clothing, how much food would a person have a right to? And what kind of clothes? And if a person has such “positive rights,” how can those rights be provided for without violating another person’s “negative rights”? A person’s right not to have their possessions taken from them, whether it be food, clothing, or money to buy things, must be trampled upon if other persons have positive rights. Beisner shows that “positive rights” are not Biblical rights.
In the next section Beisner gives the Biblical prescription for five types of justice: Commercial, vindicative, retributive, punitive, and remedial.
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