Feature
The Pastoral Obligation To
The Task Of Theology
by Todd L. Miles
(Continued from Page 3)
4. Neglect Of Theology Leads To Idolatrous Worship
Worship is never to occur in a vacuum. It ought to be the response to the Lord’s revelation. In his excellent book, Worship Matters, Bob Kauflin writes,
Our relationship with God has always been characterized by the ebb and flow of revelation and response. If God hadn’t revealed himself to us, we wouldn’t know who to thank, who to obey, or who to serve. We wouldn’t know how to worship him. But God does reveal his character, nature, and promises to us, and we respond with gratefulness and obedience. We respond with worship. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.
It is the responsibility of the pastor to lead the congregation in worship. Scripture reading, giving, praying, preaching and singing are part of the typical Sunday morning service in the North American evangelical church. Each component is a response to the Lord, and each part is worship. I am taking it for granted that pastors are spending a significant amount of time preparing to preach the Word of God to their congregations (I hope that is a valid assumption!). But how much time is spent preparing the other aspects of the worship service? When preparing a sermon, the pastor ought to be careful to rightly handle the word of truth and to proclaim with authority that which the Lord has spoken in His Word. Should we be any less careful in the other aspects of the worship service? How many times have we heard an offering meditation that essentially calls for people to give out of a sense of guilt and effectively denies the Lord’s self-sufficiency and independence (e.g. “God needs you to give . . .”)? How many times, during a communion meditation, have we heard someone (unintentionally, I hope) thank God the Father for dying on the cross? To affirm that God the Father died on the cross is to affirm the heresy of patripassionism. Heresy prayed or heresy spoken in a meditation is no less heretical than when it is preached. Wrong ideas about the Lord and his ways are no less harmful when they are sung than when they are preached. In fact, they are probably more harmful when sung because music usually has more staying power in our memories than the spoken word.
Worship ought to be the right response to the Lord’s revelation of Himself and His ways. If we do not listen to the revelation of God then we will respond to our own imaginations and worship a god of our own making. The biblical word for this is idolatry. I am not calling for an invasion of the heresy police. But I am imploring the pastor to be intentional (act like you care!) and use the guidance of God’s word to inform what we do in worship. Shepherds of the Lord’s church must teach, preach, pray, plan, and lead with a biblically informed intentionality. This is a theological task.
5. Neglect Of Theology Leads To Inevitable Neglect Of The Gospel
The gospel is the only hope for humanity precisely because it is the good news of our sovereign Lord’s action to rescue humanity, redeem the cosmos, and restore his Kingdom. The gospel is remarkably simple to articulate (see 1 Cor 15:1-4) but, unfortunately, easy to forget. One would not think this is not the case, but the church has demonstrated a stunning proclivity to drift away from the gospel. Consider the following recent example.
There has been a revival of interest in the Kingdom of God by the Emerging Church and younger evangelicals. Reasons for this renewed interest include the centrality of the Kingdom in the Scriptures and the missional impulse of younger evangelicals. Many Emerging Church leaders have chosen to utilize the Kingdom of God as the paradigm for revisioning church practice. Rethinking the practice of the church is always necessary. We ought always to evaluate the church’s practice and teaching according to the Word of God as guided by the Holy Spirit. This is why it is essential that pastors be biblically and theologically grounded. In the case of many Emerging Church leaders, however, there is a deficient and distorted understanding of the Kingdom of God, in that the “Kingdom” references are just a means of justifying a shift in priorities at the expense of fidelity to the biblical witness. Specifically, many Emerging Church leaders use the Kingdom of God as a call to social action while ignoring the centrality of the kingship of Jesus and his work on the cross to make the Kingdom possible. A notable example is Brian McLaren and his book, The Secret Message of Jesus. The entire book is structured around the Kingdom of God without any significant reference to the cross, sin, or the authoritative kingship of Jesus. He wants the Kingdom of God without the King!
When the story of Scripture is ignored, it is easy to make the results of the gospel the priority. When the gospel is diminished or distorted, history has demonstrated that we will inevitably resort to a reliance on works (the social gospel) in our proclamations and ministry. Shepherds have been called to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). This requires that pastors continually remind their congregations of the content and centrality of the gospel, a theological task at the most foundational level.
6. Neglect Of Theology Leads To A Deficient And Distorted Understanding Of God
Pastors must intentionally teach the whole counsel of the Lord. This is absolutely necessary when it comes to God’s revelation of Himself and His works (theology proper). As I mentioned earlier, God is an absolute person who exists independent of our thinking. Because the Lord is a real being with many attributes, we must take into consideration all that the Lord has revealed of Himself if we are to know and understand Him. We do not have the freedom to pick and choose the attributes we like, focusing on them while neglecting the attributes that do not resonate with our ever-changing sensibilities.
Focusing on one attribute while ignoring or denying other attributes will result in a distortion of who the Lord is. Further, if we focus on one attribute while denying the rest of the Lord’s revelation, we will ultimately distort the attribute of our focus. For example, most people (even at the street level) believe that God is love (1 John 4:8). But if we focus solely on the love of God, and forget/ignore/deny His holiness or self-sufficiency, we not only distort the character and nature of the Lord, we will not even rightly understand His love. The Lord is able to love us precisely because of His self-sufficiency. If the Lord did not possess everything inherently, then his love for us would ultimately be conditioned on our meeting some kind of need in Him. That is a precarious, if not impossible, place to be. Praise God for his love for us. But praise him also for his self-sufficiency that makes His unconditional love possible.
This is my biggest concern with William Young’s popular book, The Shack. It focuses on the love, grace, and mercy of God, but denies and/or ignores such attributes and actions as holiness, wrath, judgment, justice and the atonement. I think it is fine to deliver sermons or write articles or books on certain divine attributes, but when writing a narrative in which God explains who He is and how He governs (The Shack is a theodicy), we cannot ignore or deny parts of God’s revelation of Himself without distorting the attributes of our focus. By writing a narrative that highlights the grace of God while ignoring and denying God’s holiness and justice, Young has left the grace and mercy of God groundless. Pastors have to teach and preach the whole counsel of God, His attributes and actions. This is a theological task.
