This installment is titled “Smugness.”
What are we to do about Gospel ministers who do not think about
thinking? What can we do about Gospel ministers who do not read about reading? What
are we to do about Gospel ministers who do not study about studying?
I am serious about these questions in my seventy-fifth year, my
fifty-first year in the faith, and my forty-seventh year in the pastorate. My
concern at this time is with smugness.
Smugness, as I define it, is a somewhat subtle form of pride and
cannot coexist with humility, which is one of the most Christ-like character
traits. We see God’s attitude toward pride in James 4.6 and First Peter 5.5 and
recognize how the Lord Jesus exemplified humility from Paul’s comments in First
Corinthians 11.3 (where it is intimated the Second Person submits to the First
Person throughout eternity) and Philippians 2.5-8 (where Paul’s use of the imperative
shows the believer’s humility is not optional).
How is smugness revealed in the thoughts and conduct of a Gospel
minister? I would suggest various ways, including the complete absence of
curiosity, when a view, a concept, a doctrinal position, or a variant stance on
an issue is brought to our attention. Many peers and almost peers embrace the
notion that they already know everything there is to know, understand
everything there is to understand, and that no further progress is to be entertained,
much less implemented.
I remember a New Testament interpretation course at PCBBC. One
day, a substitute filled in and was lecturing when one of my classmates raised
his hand to ask him the source of the material he was teaching. The substitute teacher
said, “These are my notes from BBC.” In other words, he had effectively learned
nothing in the more than twenty years since he earned his ThG! Sad. I did not
know at the time that I was appalled by his answer that so many in the ministry
would not only not study the Bible (not really anyway) but would also never
look at a systematic theology or missionary biography after leaving school.
When I asked him what had recently captured his interest, I once
had a missionary tell me, “Brother John, I don’t read.” I almost choked. A few
years ago, a discouraged friend who had retired with a 10,000-volume library
(he is truly a scholar) told me that his new pastor once said, “I don’t read. I
listen to podcasts!” Has it come to that?
I have a friend who no longer has a relationship with his pastor
from childhood to his teen years after he asked him if they might spend some
time discussing the doctrine of election. My friend had not formed an opinion
or established a position, yet his pastor was so hostile to the word
that their relationship was forever irreparably damaged. Seriously?
Open, close, and closed communion is a topic never revisited once a
position is staked out. The doctrines of grace are effectively avoided
(regardless of one’s position) once the positions of your friends are known. Also,
the treatment of brothers and sisters in Christ will frequently and callously ignore
the Savior’s imperative of John 15.17, sometimes treating other believers as
non-believers.
I find such closed-mindedness offensive and reflects a gross misunderstanding
of the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit, Who never teaches any of us
everything and Who is always interested in revealing the truth to us as we
exercise the correct use of means (reading, studying, praying, interacting with
other faithful Bible students, etc.).
Not too long ago, I read an astonishing declaration from someone who
ought to know better, in which he said (in essence) that it is wrong to read anything
written by anyone ‘who is not one of us.’ Sadly, he has ruled out so much. Do
not read “The Theocratic Kingdom” by George Peters? Do not read the sermons that
Spurgeon preached in print? Do not read accounts of great revivals written by
the men who were there but were not Baptists? Do not read the writings of
Jonathan Edwards? Seriously?
It came to a head in my mind before I recently traveled to Nepal, where
I had the opportunity to preach to several hundred Baptist pastors about
holiness and the doctrine of the Bible. Several years ago, I was given a small
book written by Charles L. Hunt. It is one of the most remarkable works I have
ever read, bearing very heavily on the doctrine of the Church. Sadly, however,
I have encountered the smugness I am writing about, with almost no one
interested in a book that puts to rest once and for all the erroneous
Protestant view of the Church.
Whether you are young or old, with an established ecclesiology or not, I
urge you to seriously consider this book, which I will send you upon request. The
book will either seriously bolster the position you already embrace or change
your stance entirely. At worst, it is a book I am sure you will want to pass on
to others to read.
JohnSWaldrip@ClassicalBaptist.Press
www.ClassicalBaptist.Press
