Many want to be preachers and Bible teachers without realizing how dangerous a job it is. This desire often results from an over-confidence in their abilities and from viewing these positions through rose-tinted spectacles. What they don’t realize is that they are a danger to themselves and to others.
So should you become a preacher or teacher? If so, how can you do this safely. Let’s see what James has to say to us about this in James 3:1-2.
1. TEACHERS SHOULD HESITATE
“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers” (1a).
Many want to be teachers
Few should become teachers
Why should I pause? Why so much caution?
2. TEACHERS WILL BE STRICTLY JUDGED
“For you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways” (1b-2a).
Teachers will be strictly judged
Teachers will fail frequently
Well, why would anyone become a teacher then?
3. TEACHERS CAN ACCELERATE HOLINESS (2)
“And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body” (2b).
Tongue-control is possible
Tongue-control enables body-control
Do you see how despite the negative, there’s also a major positive? Becoming a better Bible teacher will make you a holier person.
LIVING THE BIBLE
Consider preaching and teaching cautiously, prayerfully, humbly, and hopefully.
PRAYING THE BIBLE
Perfect Teacher, we confess that sometimes our motives for wanting to become a preacher or teacher of the Bible are sinful. We think too much of our own talents and abilities, and too little of the difficulties and dangers.
Thank you for your Word which checks our desire and reminds us how solemn and serious being a preacher or teacher of the Bible is. We who are teachers are so liable to make mistakes and you will judge us more strictly than others.
But improvements in our preaching and teaching should go hand-in-hand with improvements in our holiness, which we long for. Therefore help us to consider teaching cautiously, prayerfully, humbly, and hopefully.
We praise you, Lord Jesus, because you were the perfect teacher who never stumbled, the perfect man able to bridle your whole body. We embrace your perfection to cover our imperfection and use your perfection to motivate our own. Amen.
So many wrong ideas of religion abound today. How do we know what is true and what is false religion? How do we know if we have true religion? These are difficult questions to answer today for three reasons.
People are confused about what true religion is, leaving them in a state of uncertainty.
People are deceived about their religious status, thinking they have something valuable when they don’t.
People damage the cause of true religion, thinking they have something true beautiful when their words actions show it is false and ugly.
How do we get over these difficulties? Is there any way to know what is true and what is false religion? Is there any way to know if I have true religion? Yes, there is. In James 1:26 27, James helped his readers to distinguish between counterfeit and true religion in two ways.
1. WORTHLESS RELIGION HAS TWO FATAL FLAWS
“This person’s religion is worthless” (26). What characterizes this person with worthless religion? What devalues a person’s religion? There are two fatal flaws:
The fatal flaw of an unbridled tongue: “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue” (26). James pictures a tongue that is as uncontrolled and dangerous as a wild horse.
The fatal flaw of a deceived heart: He “deceives his heart” (26). beautiful a person’s religion looks from the outside if the person’s heart is not right with God, if it’s all a pretense, an act, it’s got a fatal flaw in God’s eyes and is therefore ugly and unacceptable to him.
Summary: An ungoverned tongue reveals an ungoverned heart.
Question: That helps me to identify what’s false and worthless. But how do I know what’s true and valuable?
2. PURE RELIGION HAS TWO BEAUTIFUL DIAMONDS
Pure religion is defined by God. “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this” (27). He then shines the spotlight on two beautiful gems.
The beautiful gem of visiting widows and orphans: “To visit orphans and widows in their affliction” (27). In James’s day, they were widows and orphans. Today they may also include single parents and refugees.
The beautiful gem of a holy life: “And to keep oneself unstained from the world” (27). James sees true religion as involved in this world but unspotted by the world. Getting our hands dirty but not our hearts.
Summary: Give yourself to the weak of the world, but keep yourself unspotted from the world.
LIVING THE BIBLE
Prove your religion is true, valuable, and beautiful by caring for widows and orphans and by holy living.
PRAYING THE BIBLE
God of truth, there are so many wrong ideas of religion around today.
Sometimes we are confused about what true religion is. We can even be deceived about our own spiritual state. We also grieve that so many claim to be Christians but their life contradicts their words and therefore damage true Christianity.
Steer us away from worthless religion by ridding us of the fatal flaws of an uncontrolled tongue and a deceived heart.
Steer us towards valuable religion by adorning us with the beautiful gems of caring for the weak and a holy life.
We see the truth, value, and beauty of Christ’s faith on earth by his perfect tongue, perfect heart, perfect care, and perfect life. What a beautiful savior he is!
Prove our religion true, valuable, and beautiful by giving us the grace to care for widows, orphans, single parents, and refugees, and by holy living. Amen.
What would Jesus say to us were he living in this world during the Coronavirus pandemic?
That’s the question I’ve been wrestling with the past few days. It sent me to my Bible because that’s the way Jesus speaks to us today. I turned to Exodus chapters 7-11 where we read of another time God used plagues to create a national state of emergency. I encourage you to read these chapters and ask God to help you hear his ever-relevant, ever-powerful Word. I want to focus on God’s message in chapter 8.
We can make two major mistakes when God sends judgments on the earth. We can under-estimate God’s judgments or we can over-estimate God’s judgments.
We can under-estimate God’s judgments in two ways:
We minimize them: We can do this by ignoring God’s judgments, by playing them down, by attributing them to chance, by false assurances that all will be well.
We equalize them. We wrongly think that human power is equal to the challenge of God’s judgments. Or we can equate God’s power with the devil’s power, seeing any battle as one between two equals with an uncertain outcome.
We can over-estimate God’s judgments in two ways:
We catastrophize. We panic that it’s all out of control and there’s no way of escape. God’s just lashing out at everyone.
We idealize. We are sure people will be scared of God’s judgments and turn to him in repentance.
We don’t want to fall into these errors and lose the spiritual profit that is available. Is there a way to approach these judgments of God that will yield the maximum worship for God and spiritual profit for us? In Exodus 8, Moses helps us to have a balanced view of God’s judgments that neither under-estimates nor over-estimates them.
For more, see my sermon notes. Scroll down a bit further and you’ll find a one-page sermon summary infographic. Index to other sermon notes here.
Tessa Thompson is one of the most remarkable women I’ve ever met. If you suffer or minister to sufferers, you will benefit hugely from her book, Laughing at the Days to Come: Facing Present Trials and Future Uncertainties with Gospel Hope. I want to present three pieces of evidence to persuade you that purchasing and reading this book will be well worth your time and money.
First, watch this video to get a brief glimpse into her unique courage, gracious wisdom, and inspiring story.
Second, here’s my endorsement:
“In a world addicted to cheap laughs that demean God and mock sufferers, here’s a unique book on Christian laughter that glorifies God and lifts up sufferers. A book on laughter that will make you cry tears of sympathy, tears of joy, and tears of worship. A remarkable book by a remarkable woman with a remarkable God.”
Third, here’s a brief Q&A.
Why did you write the book?
While I was gradually losing my hearing in my teens, the godly woman in Proverbs 31 who “laughs at the time to come” (v. 25) was a great encouragement to me. I was crying when I thought of the days to come, and she had a laughter I greatly needed. One night, the title Laughing at the Days to Come came to mind, and I wrote it in my journal, thinking I would love to write a book on the theme one day. That was more than fifteen years ago, but I never lost my desire to write about that fascinating and fear-defeating laughter.
My 20s were a decade of both loss and disappointment, as I lost my hearing completely and God did not see it fit to answer hundreds of fervent prayers for healing. I wanted to be a woman who laughed at the days to come; the problem was, nearly the only thing I could envision for the days to come was being healed. I became absolutely certain God was going to do it. Instead, He took me gently by the hand and graciously corrected my flawed theology. Coming to understand the fatherly sovereignty of God and the nature of our “now but not yet” salvation was life-changing, and I greatly desired to put into words how those truths can help us cultivate a life of laughter.
Who will this book benefit and why?
I hope this book will benefit not only those who are walking through some form of present suffering, but also those who look to the future and wonder what trials might be up ahead. I think it’s safe to say that would be most of us. The reality of suffering in a fallen world is not news to Christians – we know it’s inevitable, and most would even readily admit that it is quite good for us. It drives us to Christ, it sanctifies us, and it gives us greater longing for heaven. What we don’t like is not knowing what’s coming. In present suffering, we wonder, How bad is this going to get? In days of blessing, we are tempted to anxiously question, What tragedy is waiting for me just around the corner? It is my hope that the truths and applications in the book will not only comfort and help those in present trials, but also equip those who are tempted to worry about future trials. If we can increasingly know, believe, and act upon these truths now, we will be much less likely to crumble when the trials of tomorrow come, whether big or small.
On another note, I would love for this book to get into the hands of those who have walked through the disappointment of unanswered prayer—for physical healing, a restored marriage, an open womb—and have been left confused or hardened. Of course, this book is not an exhaustive study on prayer, God’s sovereignty, or suffering; but I hope that sharing my personal story will create some common ground, and then point those readers in the right direction toward a sounder understanding of God’s word and His ways.
In suffering, how do we get beyond merely coping and accepting, to laughing?
Both believers and unbelievers walk through suffering. We all live in the same world of cancer, car problems, and relational conflict. And because no one naturally enjoys pain, loss, and suffering, the world offers plenty of strategies for how to cope in the midst of life’s discomfort, whether that be a debilitating disease or the daily, mundane difficulty of raising a toddler. Unbelievers can learn to cope with and accept their troubles well enough, because coping and accepting depend primarily on self-awareness—acknowledging my sorrow, regulating my emotions, controlling my responses, etc. How is the reality of my suffering affecting me and what can I do about it?
A life of laughter, rather, starts with a God-awareness—Who is God, what has He done, and what has He promised? How does that affect my response to the reality of suffering? Those who know and believe these truths are able to laugh at the days to come because they know these truths are fixed and unchanging. They are not laughing because they expect their circumstances to change for the better (or to never change for the worse), but they are laughing because God and His gospel do not change.
For some believers, the suffering seems to go on without end as they endure one painful circumstance after another. But even a life of ongoing, increasingly painful suffering can be a life of laughter, because when it comes down to it, this godly laughter has eternity stamped upon its eyeballs. We do not merely believe that God our Father will get us through it—we believe that He will get us home. The reality of God does not change the fact that we live in a fallen world and many tears will be shed. But the reality of God does promise us that one day, all those tears will be wiped away and our suffering will be no more.
In light of this report and the nature of sexual abuse, an independent, third-party investigation is the only credible avenue for any organizations that face the kind of sinful patterns unearthed in this article by the Houston Chronicle. No Christian body, church, or denomination can investigate itself on these terms because such an investigation requires a high level of thoroughness and trustworthiness. Only a third-party investigator can provide that kind of objective analysis.
Our Digital Lives Don’t Need to Make Us Unhappy, Unhealthy, and Unwise “Now is the moment to pursue a three-pronged approach to all digital encounters: literacy, hygiene, and labeling. We have the opportunity of a lifetime to re-shape our still primitive and often unruly digital culture into a safer, healthier, more rewarding domain.”
Finally, a Biblical Marriage Counseling Primer! “If you are a pastor, biblical counselor, or anyone who walks with couples, get Counsel for Couples. I am confident it will not stay on your bookshelf, but be a well-worn resource as you care for and counsel couples.”
Is My Boyfriend’s Porn a Marriage Deal-Breaker? “I would say, “Yeah, that is a deal-breaker.” …And I would say, “Don’t lower the bar.” I think we have lowered the bar too much. We have treated men like dogs in heat rather than men who are created in the image of God and who have the Holy Spirit, whose fruit is love, joy, and self-control. That last one, self-control, is usually used in relation to sexuality. Men are not victims, and these women have a right to expect more from us.”
Don’t Put Your Hope in Date Night “When we falsely believe a date night out is the only way to grow in marriage, enjoy one another, foster intimacy, and maintain a healthy commitment, we’re bound to continually feel defeated and disappointed. God is gracious to provide many ways for couples to connect and grow deeper in their love for one another beyond a night out. In fact, date-night dry seasons might be the times we best reveal the beauty of our covenant, as we steadfastly love and serve each other in difficult times.”
“Gospel of the Happy God” “Real happiness is the blessedness of God. Real happiness, the gospel of freedom and salvation and liberation and transformation, is when humans in all their need come under the care of the happy God who has no needs whatsoever, and who undertakes to pay the price of bringing us into fellowship with his own blessedness.”
A Puritan Primer: The ABC’s of Counseling the Aged “The following directions, taken from A Christian Directory by Richard Baxter,[1] provide a Puritan lens for counseling the special responsibilities of the aged. ”
Four years ago, I was a basket case It’s vulnerability and transparency like this that’s smashing the stigma of mental and emotional disorders.
“That is one of the worst parts about anxiety: the anxiety that people will notice our anxiety. When one begins to have that feeling, she knows it is out of control. We shouldn’t feel so worried in the church, but unfortunately, that is the place I felt the least safe. The place where I felt the safest was with my husband, and to this day, I am so thankful for that.”
Sabbath Rest Is for Busy Moms, Too “Over the course of several days, conversations, and prayer, I realized I needed a new definition of rest. I didn’t just need the kind of rest where I kick my feet up, I needed the deep soul rest that comes from dependence on Christ and is commanded by God: Sabbath rest. Out of his goodness and mercy, God rested from his work on the seventh day of creation (Gen. 2:15), setting a pattern for his creatures to follow.”
