When we pass through trials, we tend to focus on the medium-term, which usually increases anxiety and worry. The bereaved widow worries about how she will cope in six months time, or who will look after her in five years time. The parents of a severely brain-damaged baby look ahead and worry over life-or-death decisions about the baby’s medical care. The discouraged pastor projects himself forward one year or five years and wonders how he can go on. A stressed-out mother panics when she imagines herself still running after four screaming kids next year, and the next year… The devoted husband watches his darling wife dying of cancer and hears a baby crying in the background.

For me, the antidote to medium term worry is to focus shorter and longer. I focus shorter by focusing on today. I get on with today’s tasks and responsibilities and make tonight’s pillow my major horizon. I refuse to think about tomorrow, next month, or next year. I have duties today. That’s my mountain to climb and, by God’s grace, I will climb it one small step at a time.

But, from time to time, I also want to focus longer. I want to look beyond the short-term and the medium-term and look towards the eternity-term. I try to remind myself that, for Christians, there is a day coming when all trials and afflictions will be over. The widow will never feel lonely again. Disabled children will think, feel, relate, communicate, and move in glorified bodies. Burnt-out pastors will be ministered to by the Lord Himself. Stressed-out mothers and bereft husbands will have all their tears wiped away.  As Paul said, the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed.

Looks like we might need a new -ism. How about blonde-ism or hair-ism. As reported in The Telegraph, a study of 13,000 Caucasian women by David W. Johnston of Queensland University of Technology in Australia concluded that blondes earn 7% more than brunettes, an effect as large as the wage boost from an additional year of education. (Maybe we didn’t need a scientist to tell us that.) Further, the men blondes marry earn an average of 6% more than husbands of women with other hair colors. Previous studies have shown that employers wrongly consider attractive workers to be more productive.

This follows on from last year’s research on “heightism” that showed how tall people get larger salaries, higher status, and more respect. (Being 6’3″ I must admit I quite enjoyed reading that.) Each extra inch produces an extra $789 in salary, seemingly. The researcher, Timothy Judge at the University of Florida, resorted to evolution for an explanation:

Perhaps society is not consciously aware of the importance we place on height. If the status accorded to tall people has evolutionary origins—when height signaled strength and power—these same psychological processes may exist today; just in our subconscious.

Of course, the Christian knows that all our prejudice, bias, and favoritism have their roots in our own sinful human hearts. Our times and our hearts are no different to those of the prophet Samuel’s day:

But the LORD said to Samuel, Look not on his countenance (face), or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD sees not as man sees; for man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).

What a challenge to all our pre-judgments, and what an encouragement to the pre-judged.

If I was to pick one thing that had enriched my spiritual life and pastoral ministry most over the last 12 months it would be the exposure I’ve had to the pastoral blogs at the Gospel Coalition. Day after day, I am stimulated, inspired, corrected, rebuked, and encouraged by the short practical blogs being written by pastors from a variety of backgrounds, all in very different ministry situations. Although I’ve never met any of these men, I have a strange (mysterious?) “fellowship” with them through their blogging. Here are just a few articles that I’ve enjoyed over the past couple of days.

Have a look at this challenging post on shepherding our children from Brain Croft, senior pastor of Auburndale Baptist Church, who blogs at Practical Shepherding. I know I could not keep up the standard Brian sets in this article, but the principles he outlines can be applied in ways that are more realistic for our circumstances. If I could even do once a month what Brain suggests, then it would still be worth doing.

Two great posts by Justin Buzzard, a church planting pastor in Phoenix, Arizona. The first encourages pastors to Go where your men work. I tried a bit of this in my two pastorates, but I wish I had done more.  It was definitely worthwhile. Again, maybe Justin sets the bar a bit high for most of us, but even if we can’t do this weekly, once a month would still be a good aim. (Justin blogs at The Buzzard Blog).

Justin’s second post is Live FROM feedback, not FOR feedback. I especially liked the way Justin highlighted that it is the feedback of our heavenly Father that we should be living from.

Lastly, all pastors should read Jason Helopoulus’s painful post on the inability of most pastors to listen well, and how to fix that.

O, yes, and one more lastly. Have a read of Britt Merrick’s The Beauty of Suffering, a deeply moving account of what he has learned from his six-year-old daughter Daisy’s battle with cancer. And please add Daisy to your prayers.

Would John the Baptist have read the Harvard Business Review? (See comments).

Hmm….

What’s behind this question, I think, is the idea that the pastoral ministry is so different from any other kind of work that we cannot learn anything from other people in other walks of life. Is that idea correct? I say, no. For two reasons.

First, God used existing models of leadership to describe the pastor’s role and responsibilities. Every model of leadership in the Bible existed before God took it over to define, explain and illustrate the pastor’s role: shepherd, watchman, rabbi, captain, steward (or household manager), father, mother, judge, builder, etc. Not one of these models gives a complete picture of the pastor’s role. However, each one sheds significant light on one aspect of it. To understand our pastoral role better, we need to understand these other roles better.

Second, the sufficiency of Scripture, does not mean that the Bible gives specific or detailed guidance on every single problem or opportunity we face.  If it did, instead of having one book we can carry with us, we would have a library of volumes that we could never read in a lifetime.

Does that mean God has left us lacking something? No, of course not. God has given us sufficient general principles to work out and apply in every single specific situation. And sometimes we fill out the detail of the biblical principle by learning from non-biblical sources. John Piper put it like this:

To be obedient in the sciences we need to read science and study nature. To be obedient in economics we need to read economics and observe the world of business. To be obedient in sports we need to know the rules of the game. To be obedient in marriage we need to know the personality of our spouse. To be obedient as a pilot we need to know how to fly a plane.

The sufficiency of Scripture means we don’t need any more special revelation. We don’t need any more inspired, inerrant words. In the Bible God has given us, we have the perfect standard for judging all other knowledge. All other knowledge stands under the judgment of the Bible.

John Calvin used the illustration of spectacles to explain this [Inst.1.6.1]. He said that the Bible is not only what we read, but what we read with. We use its pages as spectacles to view and read the world and the knowledge God has distributed throughout it. Calvin explains:

The human mind, however much fallen and perverted from its original integrity, is still adorned and invested with admirable gifts from its Creator. . . . We will be careful . . . not to reject or condemn truth wherever it appears.[Inst.1.2.15]

If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole foundation of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonor the Spirit of God. Shall we say that the philosophers were blind in their fine observation and artful description of nature?  . . .  No, we cannot read the writings of the ancients on these subjects without great admiration. But if the Lord has willed that we be helped in physics, dialectic, mathematics, and other like disciplines, by the work and ministry of the ungodly, let us use this assistance. For if we neglect God’s gift freely offered in these arts, we ought to suffer just punishment for our sloths.[2.2.15-16]

Take time management, for example. We are given some principles in the Bible about time, some of which are explicit and some of which are deduced. But we can be greatly helped to redeem the time by reading modern books on time management and organization—again, never leaving our spectacles off but rather reading and checking this knowledge with the Bible.

In some cases the Scriptures will be explicit. In others we can deduce helpful principles. But in some areas we need to use our Bible as spectacles to read and learn from the knowledge God has distributed and deposited in the world.

Are there dangers in this approach? Of course there are. Have some adopted unbiblical models from the world? Sadly, yes. We always have to be careful that we do not adopt the world’s standards or practices just because they work or are fashionable. However, with the help of prayer, the Holy Spirit and Scriptural spectacles, pastors can learn from non-pastors.

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama successfully portrayed the Bush administration as “out of touch…idealogical…and in bed with big business.” He, in contrast, was “down-to-earth…practical…and on the same side as ordinary Americans.”

What a difference 18 months makes.

In an article for the UK’s Daily Telegraph, Peggy Noonan offers advice to new British Prime Minister, David Cameron, as he prepared to visit President Obama in Washington. The sum and substance of the article can be captured by the title: “David Cameron, don’t follow Barack Obama.” There was a common thread to Noonan’s criticisms of President Obama’s first 18 months:
 

He came across as a detached academic who believed in abstract notions he’d picked up in the faculty lounge.

…It’s the faculty-lounge problem again: people in business deal with real things, people in faculty lounges deal with ideas, abstractions, theories; they’re swayed by this school of thought and that; they’re macro. Businessmen must be micro: “Hey buddy, I’m trying to open a dry cleaners over here!”

He tries, but he can’t get it right because it’s all so abstract to him.

The dictionary defines abstract as:”theoretical, conceptual, hypothetical, unreal.”

It’s antonyms are “actual, concrete, factual, real.”

As I read this I wondered how often I had fallen into this trap myself. Are my sermons theoretical or actual, conceptual or concrete, hypothetical or factual, unreal or real?

It is so easy for us preachers to get so enamored with an abstract point of theology, or a system of theology, that we lose all touch with reality, or the desire and ability to apply that theology to people’s lives (and our own).

Noonan had previously held high hopes for President Obama, but as she looks back on various pivotal points, she says: “He simply wasn’t thinking about what they [the American people] were thinking about.” Noonan’s last piece of advice to Prime Minister Cameron is: “…and care what is on the people’s minds, as much as what’s on your own.”

Noted.