Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Is there a specific call to the ministry? What is God’s call? How do we discern that we’ve received it? When does it come? Hello, friend. This is Grace in Focus. These are questions we will be answering today. We are glad you’ve joined us. Grace in Focus is the ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society, and we come to you each weekday from a Free Grace perspective. Our website is faithalone.org. Lots of articles and resources there, and we offer a free magazine called Grace in Focus, published bi-monthly six times per year. Free to all, the only exception to that is you need to pay postage if you live outside of the 48 contiguous United States. So go to that website faithalone.org and get signed up. We’d love to send it to you, faithalone.org. And now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and David Renfro. 

BOB: All right, David, I think you have a question from who? 

DAVID: Ruth. 

BOB: Ruth. Well, very good. That’s very godly biblical name. 

DAVID: Her question first is, what does it mean to be called, that’s in quotes, to the full-time ministry of being a pastor. Many think that a man has to have some sort of of, quote, mystical experience to validate that he’s being called, like a feeling or a sense that God has His hand on this decision in some special way that he doesn’t have on any other decision. On the other hand, is it as simple as seeing the need and filling it if the man is qualified in all other regards, scripturally, and is willing to commit to the congregation? That’s our question. Is the calling to ministry, whether it be pastor, missionary, whatever, is that a mystical experience? Or is it kind of up to you if you see a need and you’re equipped? You go ahead and fulfill it. 

BOB: Okay. Great question, Ruth. And your question brings up about four different things that we probably need to talk about. One of which is, you know, she talked about a man. Yeah. It sounds like Ruth is not a egalitarian, complementarian. 

A egalitarian would be someone who believes that husbands and wives make decisions as a team. And if they ever disagree, then they don’t do anything. So it’s just you have a vote. Hopefully it’s 2-0. But if it’s 1-1, then we’re not doing it. And that’s the egalitarian approach. 

The complementarian approach is that the husband is the head of the wife and that the husband and wife do make decisions together, but the final decision is made by the husband. And if it’s a 1-1, then we do what the husband says, but the wife gets all the input. She gets to talk about it. She gets to convince him. But if she can’t, then he needs to make a decision. Sometimes he will do something which he believes is best for the family, but not really his preference. So that the husband should be a loving husband. He should love his wife, as Christ loves His church. 

DAVID: You know, it’s funny. I don’t think there’s a Scripture that tells wives to love their husbands. 

BOB: No, that’s exactly right. But wives are called to submit, but they’re not called to love, but husbands on the other hand are not called to submit to their wives, but they are called to love their wives.

DAVID: And what word for love is?

BOB: agape.

DAVID: And the way I look at agape based on my studies is that it’s a love of commitment and sacrifice. 

BOB: Absolutely. A husband is a servant leader. Okay, let me bring out four things. First of all, she’s talking about calling to being a pastor. 

DAVID: Yeah, like the Lord has a special way of saying, you do this. 

BOB: So before we even get into the word calling, let me mention there is no office called pastor in the older New Testament. Pastor is shepherding and shepherding in the New Testament was done by people called elders or they’re also called overseers 

DAVID: Isn’t that of one of the spiritual gifts?

BOB: The term pastor/teacher seems to be a spiritual gift combined, pastor/teacher. It’s not that the person has an office, but they have a gift. Some people say pastor and teacher are two separate gifts. Some people say pastor/teacher is one gift. But in any case, there is no office of pastor in the New Testament. Therefore, nobody can be called to be a pastor. They could be called to be an elder if there is such a thing— 

DAVID: Or a deacon. 

BOB: Or a deacon or a missionary or whatever. But secondly, what does it mean to be called in the Old Testament, in the New Testament? Let’s mention that in the Old Testament, we did have people who were called to be prophets. God actually spoke to them and said you’re to be a prophet. You also had some people who are called to be kings. So you have those callings. In terms of the Old Testament, Levites and priests, you might call it a calling, but they were born that way, right? 

DAVID: It was specific in the law of Moses that the tribe of Levi was set aside and one line of the tribe of Levi were the priests. All priests are Levites, but not all Levites are priests. 

BOB: Okay. So the Levites would serve—

DAVID: The non-priestly Levites were called to serve the priestly Levites. 

BOB: So they might be the ones that carried the burnt offerings out of the tabernacle, out of the temple. 

DAVID: They managed the temple, the tabernacle, they maintained it to make sure it was still sturdy, if you will, that kind of thing. But they did the work of the ministry to support the ministry of the priests. 

BOB: Okay. So in the Old Testament, calling was not to be a priest or a Levite unless you think of that in terms of birth. And it was sometimes with the prophet. Now in the New Testament, calling is never to be a pastor. In fact, calling appears to be that we are called to rule or invited to rule and reign in the life to come. Jesus said, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” I take it that that refers to those who will be chosen to rule and reign with Christ in the life to come. But no one is called in the New Testament to be an elder or a deacon. That’s not a use of the term calling.

ANNOUNCER: We will rejoin in just a moment. But years ago, Zane Hodges wrote The Gospel Under Siege. Sadly, this is still true. And GES president Bob Wilkin has recently written its sequel. Bob’s new book, The Gospel is Still Under Siege, is a book about theological clarity on the biblical teaching about eternal salvation. It is available now. Secure yours today at the Grace Evangelical Society’s Bookstore. Find it at faithalone.org/store. That’s faithalone.org/store. Now back to today’s content. 

BOB: Now let’s talk about what—how did Ruth put it—she said, you see a need and you fill it? 

DAVID: Yeah, she said on the other, instead of having that mystical experience that she mentioned earlier, she says, on the other hand, is it as simple as seeing a need and filling it? 

BOB: I would say that’s exactly right, Ruth. You know, I used to be a Baptist. And when I was a Baptist, I would hear oftentimes people say, well, I was called to be a pastor. I remember when I went on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, I thought I was called to go on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ. 

It wasn’t until I read the book Decision Making and the Will of God by Gary Freisen. It is a good book. That’s the same teaching that Zane Hodges had and others have written about. I agree with that position, which is that God does not predetermine that David Renfro is supposed to be a rocket scientist or David Renfro is supposed to be in technology or Bob Wilkin is supposed to be a pastor or Bob Wilkin is supposed to head Grace Evangelical Society. Instead, God gifts us with certain gifts and he asks us to make wise decisions on what we will do with our lives. And so we make the best decision. 

And some people who are pastors might have been better as a greeter at Walmart or as a doctor or as an architect or as a landscaper. 

DAVID: There’s a lot. I know a lot of people that are pastors and they’re terrible preachers and they don’t have the other gifts that you would want a pastor to have, but they have that zeal to be a pastor. And they’re not gifted. And frankly, sometimes they do more damage than good. 

BOB: I remember Jackie Deere, I graded for him for five years and I talked to him one time and he said exactly that. He said, not everybody is cut out to be a pastor or even a seminary professor or even a missionary. He said, if people go to Dallas Seminary and they end up and realize, Hey, God’s going to use me. I’m going to be effective as an elder or I’m an effective as a deacon or a Sunday school teacher or whatever, but I’m not going into full-time ministry. Jackie said, there’s nothing wrong with that. And I think he was exactly right. We need to do what we’re most effective at now. 

In my case, I did pastor for a couple of years, but I found that I thought my niche was going to be in teaching. And so I taught two different Bible colleges. The first one folded after I’d been there, one semester, it wasn’t my fault. And the second one, I got there, and within a few months, Sharon was like, I can’t take the climate, the rainy climate, in Portland, the dark and rainy climate. And we ended up, I taught one year and we left.

And that was a great thing because I ended up, I had already started Grace Evangelical Society. And when that happened, we decided, I’ll go full-time with this. There was no money coming in. $300 had been given in the past 12 months. And I went full-time with Grace Evangelical Society. 

DAVID: Well, that’s a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwich for about five years. 

BOB: About five years. A lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But then things turned around by about 1992, 93, we were able to hire some part-time staff. I was able to get paid regularly, the first four or five years, I was paid sporadically. And I would catch up like after the December giving. 

But my point is, we are not called to a specific task, whether it’s pastor or missionary or whatever—we choose. And we should choose wisely. And so if you believe your skill set is such that you could serve Christ most effectively as a doctor go for it. If your skill set is you could serve Christ most effectively as a landscaper, great. Do that. Whatever it is.

Let’s say it’s a wife. Maybe she could be best suited as a full-time homemaker. Or maybe she’s going to work full-time as a homemaker untill her kids are older. And then she’s going to go and do the secondary thing she’s trained in, whether it’s a doctor or whether it’s, you know, she’s going to be a pharmacist or whether she’s going to be in clerical work, whatever it is, she may do that or she may serve as a housewife her whole life. 

Either way, people need to make decisions. And we need to make the decisions that we believe will best glorify God and we’ll find out at the Judgment Seat of Christ how we did. And we’ll receive rewards based on what we did. 

But I like Ruth’s point. I’ve met people who felt guilty because they thought God called them to be a pastor and they never became a pastor. That’s a false guilt. 

DAVID: I agree. 

BOB: Let’s do what we can do all to the glory of God. That’s what it’s about. It’s about him. So let’s glorify him, Colossians 3:24, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily as to the Lord rather than for men.” 

DAVID: And keep in mind that the Holy Spirit has given us gifts. The whole purpose of those gifts is to serve God and serve one another. 

BOB: Or, serve God by serving one another. 

DAVID: Yeah, both are correct. But I think that’s what Christians are called to do, serving. 

BOB: Amen. You can do that based upon the gifts. We’ve all been given different gifts and that’s why we need each other. You exercise your gift and I’m edified and hopefully vice versa. That’s the way it should be in a church. 

BOB: That’s why it’s called the body of Christ. 

DAVID: Absolutely. An eye cannot hear, an ear cannot see. The body of Christ is a great illustration of what the Lord wants his covenant people to do. And that is to serve one another. 

BOB: Amen. So thanks again, Ruth. And remember, let’s keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: When we evangelize, what should we say? How should we frame the message of the gospel? Hope you’ll join us again and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.