O. I have been on vacation for the past couple of weeks...a break is always good, but during this time God has been reminding me of the great responsibility that is mine as a steward of God's word. God has called me into my position as a pastor and I am so grateful for this...but with that comes a tremendous responsibility. This particular verse speaks of my responsibility of preaching and teaching the truth of God's Word. It is my duty to study and reveal God's truth to the people of my congregation and to rebuke those who stand against this same truth. This is not to be taken lightly as a pastor. It requires much of my time to correct divide the word of God and give it back to the people. It is also my responsibility to encourage those in the church to deepen their own personal relationship with God. They need to have a personal relationship with Jesus, that is supported and encouraged through my preaching and teaching.
A. I will continue to devote my time to reading and studying the Word of God.
P. "Lord Jesus, thanks for calling me and preparing me for your work. I continue to give my life to you daily for the greater cause of the kingdom of God. I love you, Lord. Amen"
You said, "It is my duty to study and reveal God's truth to the people of my congregation". I know that and I'm SO glad that you don't take it lightly. I wholeheartedly agree with your statement... however,I'm afraid that many people stop listening here. You went on to say, "They (our congregation)need to have a personal relationship with Jesus, that is supported and encouraged through my preaching and teaching." In my opinion, the idea here is that the personal study of the Christian should be Primary and your (Greg's)revelation from God's word should be Secondary and support what people are learning in their personal study. How did we get this backward, making it the pastor's responsibility to read God's word on our behalf?
ReplyDeleteLast night as we finished the last session of "In the Dust of the Rabbi", we discussed that to be a disciple it to be a man or woman who continues to read the Bible all the way through, memorize scripture and study God's word for the rest of their life. (The New Testament Challenge is a perfect place for people to start this lifelong pusuit of truth.) As a church we've stated that our vision is to make disciples. May we (myself included) be spurred on to devote ourselves to the reading of God's word SO THAT we are able to fulfill our vision which is set forth in the Great Commission... and SO THAT as we read, we will continue to fall in love with our Savior.
Last thought, I promise- yesterday I read the story of the woman at the well(John 4). We know that she believed and many of the people in town believed because of her testimony. The story ends with a very important and overlooked verse, "They said to the woman, 'We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we've heard for ourselves and we KNOW that this man really is the Savior". You see, for a while, the town people were coming to Jesus just because of an interaction SOMEONE ELSE had with Him. But what a huge moment when they encountered Him for THEMSELVES and beleived. It's one thing when you (Greg) study God's word and encourage us with what you've gotten from it- but maybe the goal of discipleship is to read and get truth for ourselves so we can honestly say 'I KNOW this man really is the Savior'.