Clergy & Sabbaticals

There is a good deal of buzz going around on the subject of Pastors expecting and being given sabbaticals.

I think I notice a class division on this subject. Generally speaking, those who are blue collar middle class are rather adamant in their opposition to Pastor’s getting sabbaticals. They seem to think, “Hey, I work just as hard as those pansies do. Why should they get a sabbatical when I work my tail off?” Meanwhile white-collar upper class seem to have less problem with the idea.

I think it might help if the blue-collar chaps realized that the purpose of a sabbatical is not “take a long vacation.” The purpose of a sabbatical is to do in depth research and study to better equip oneself to feed and bless the flock.

Since I’m a Pastor I thought I would weigh in even more.

1.) In 31 years of being in the ministry I’ve never had a sabbatical.

2.) My Father-in-law was in the ministry 40 years and never had a sabbatical.

3.) I seriously doubt the Apostles had sabbaticals.

4.) I don’t begrudge worthy clergy of having sabbaticals since the purpose of sabbaticals is for more learning/research and/or writing a book. The more research is profitable for any congregation the clergy is or will be serving. People may not like to hear this, but it is hard work for a minister to keep on knowing everything he needs to know in order to bless His flock in preaching and teaching.

5.) However, having said #4 my experience has been that the overwhelming majority of clergy don’t do any study/reading/learning of any significance. Frankly, most clergy are dumb people.

6.) I do agree that part of the problem with modern clergy is that they have never worked a non-clergy job. Such clergy thus have little ability, to sympathize with the rigors required of all men in their particular callings. I do understand other working men saying, “What is so special about the clergy that they should get sabbaticals?”

7.) However, it would be to the health of the Church to give a good man who would use the time wisely, periodic sabbaticals.

8.) I see a good deal of penis envy coming from guys not in the ministry complaining about ministers getting sabbaticals. There is a good deal to complain about ministers, but a good minister is doing every bit of work that the non-minister is doing and should not be grumbled over if he gets a sabbatical.

9.) I saw someone throw up the average pay scale for average clergy positions. I can assure you that multitudes of pastors don’t make that kind of money. Not even close.

10.) I would applaud a good minister getting sabbaticals. I would sneer at most ministers getting sabbaticals because most ministers are lousy and dumb and even if they did research and study during a sabbatical the odds are overwhelming that they would be researching and studying what they are researching and studying through the grid of a non-Christian world and life view.

The Rise of Narcissism in a Christ Hating Culture

“Hell is other people.”

Jean Paul Sartre

With the continued rebellion against Christianity the inevitable and necessary consequence is the continued exaggerated presence of selfishness in the culture since selfishness is the necessary consequence of rejecting Christ. People who will not bow the knee to the God of the Bible always make themselves God and as God, the world revolves around them. This is selfishness and when multiplied by continued rebellion against Christ it blooms into rampant cultural wide narcissism. So, as a culture becomes more and more adamant about rebelling against Christ the effect is a corresponding drastic rise in the mental disease of narcissism.

A culture that hates Christ will be always express that hatred by a rapid rise in narcissism.

A couple of books I’ve read in the past bears this theory out. Christopher Lasche’s (The Culture of Narcissism), and Diana West (Death of the Grown-up) point out this very thing. Lasche and West both saw the symptoms but struggled to diagnose the cause. Their inability to diagnose the cause is found in the fact that if they have any Christianity, that Christianity they have doesn’t impinge upon their worldview thinking.

Consistent with the above observation regarding the rise of narcissism is the corresponding rise of both sadistic and masochistic behavior. The inflated ego of the self, being in rebellion to the Lord Christ, and so having no way to deal with personal sin, will turn in one of two directions. The narcissist will turn in the direction of seeking to cast all of his sin upon those in his orbit of relationships. Not having a sin-bearer the narcissist will seek to make everyone else he meets to serve as his/her own personal sin-bearer. Taken to its inevitable end the narcissist becomes a sadist.

The only other option for the person without Christ is to seek to lay their sin and guilt upon themselves. These people will in turn become masochistic, involved in all kinds of ways in which to frustrate and/or hurt themselves.

There are other inevitabilities that arise when people refuse the God of the Bible. We especially see the rise of narcissism but a culture that rejects Christ will also be characterized by;

1.) Statism
2.) Power religion
3.) Escape religion
4.) A return to chaos as a means to bring in order.

More about those in my next post.

The Well-Intentioned Offer vs. God Commands All Men Everywhere to Repent

Max writes,

The gospel offer is not grounded in Christ dying for each person individually. Scripture grounds the offer in God’s command and God’s promise.

God commands all people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30). And He promises that whoever comes to Christ will be saved (John 6:37). That universal command and universal promise is the universal offer.

Bret responds,

Clearly Max you don’t understand the difference between a command and an offer. That God commands all men everywhere to repent is not the same as saying “God offers all men everywhere salvation.” The former is a true statement. The latter is not a true statement. God does NOT offer the reprobate salvation.

Max writes,

The offer is not: “Believe and then Christ will die for you.”
And it’s not: “Christ died for you in particular, therefore believe.”

Bret responds,

That’s correct, but only because the Gospel does not come with any offer at all.

Max writes,

The offer is: “Come to Christ, and you will find a real, finished, all‑sufficient atonement that actually saves everyone who comes.”

Bret responds,

That is not an offer. An offer says, “Christ offers to you salvation if you will have it.” What you have above Max is a tautology. Of course, people who come to Christ find a real, finished, all‑sufficient atonement that actually saves because the only people who come to Christ come because of a real, finished, all‑sufficient atonement actually saved.

Max writes,

Christ’s death is of infinite worth — fully sufficient to save every sinner on earth. The question of for whom He intended His death is a different category from the question of to whom God commands and promises salvation. Scripture keeps those categories distinct, and I’m trying to honor that distinction.

Bret

Logic also keeps the idea of “offer” distinct from the idea of “command.” You keep saying offer and then you explain “offer” as if it means “command.”

Christ commands all men everywhere to repent but He could not possibly give a well-intentioned offer to all men everywhere to repent since that would involve Him in the contradiction that He dies only for the elect, but He offers His salvation to those who were never elect and for whom He did not die for (i.e. – The reprobate).

Max writes

So the offer isn’t an empty box. The gift is Christ Himself — a real Savior with a real atonement that actually saves all who come to Him.

Bret responds

The offer is an empty box for the reprobate because there is no way it can be well-intentioned.

You don’t actually believe that man’s coming to Christ is the trigger event that effectuates Christ’s death for them do you Max?

Maybe instead it is the case that people come to Christ because they were saved at and in the Cross? Maybe that’s the reason why they hear the command (not offer) to repent and have faith?

Scripture’s Stand Against Zionism/Dispensationalism

16 ‘After this I will return
And will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down;
I will rebuild its ruins,
And I will set it up;
17 So that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
Even all the Gentiles who are called by My name,
Says the Lord who does all these things.’

18 “Known to God from eternity are all His works.

Now lest we miss the point here what Scripture is teaching is that when the Gentiles came in the Church God fulfilled His promise to restore Israel. There is no future promise left that Israel is going to be restored. The Messiah has come. The nations are streaming in. God’s promise is fulfilled. God has no future promises left for Christless Israel.

The language concerning the “fallen tent of Israel” being rebuilt (Acts 15:16) communicates the restoration of the Davidic Kingdom that was at that time now becoming the Israel of God (the Church). With the ingathering of the Nations (Gentiles) David’s Kingdom has been re-established as promised in the book of Amos. The fulfillment then is anchored in Jesus Christ, the promised descendant of David who has ascended to sit on the celestial throne on the right hand of the Father.

The Christless Jews rejected their Messiah and in rejecting their Messiah they rejected any future claim to some kind of claim to a restored land, and to any future hope of being ruled by a Messiah that they still look for. They rejected all the promises of the Old Covenant because all those promises are anchored in Jesus the Christ. If the Jews will not have Christ, they cannot have any of God’s promises for all of God’s promises are only “yea, and Amen in Christ.” The Christ has come. Israel has been restored. The Davidic Kingdom is present in He who rules an eternal Kingdom.

But it is not only the Davidic Kingdom that is rebuilt from a state of despair so that now the Church is the Israel of God and the inheritor of all the promises of the OT, but it is also the case that because Jesus the Christ has provided the restoration of Israel in building up of the Church there is no longer any need for a rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem.

In John 2 Jesus refers to Himself as “The Temple,” that if destroyed will be raised again in three days. (An obvious reference to the resurrection.) Hebrews 8 reinforces the truth any anticipation of a future rebuilt Temple in the land of Christless Israel is utter nonsense.

“Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.” Hebrews 8:1–2

Jesus Christ is the rebuilt Temple and is the Great High Priest who alone can save from sin. As such any demand or requirement that a third temple has to be rebuilt on the site were the Dome of the Rock now sits is blasphemy and treason against Jesus the Christ. To look for and support the rebuilding of a Jewish Temple is a lifting of the middle finger to Christ and His work on the Cross.

Keep in mind that the whole purpose of the Temple was to provide a place for God’s presence and where sacrifice for sin could be made. Scripture makes it clear that Jesus the Christ tabernacled among us, communicating that the Lord Christ was and is the presence of God. Scripture makes it clear that with the sacrifice of Christ there is no necessity for the sacrifices that take place in a temple.

Hebrews 10:11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ[b] had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

What’s more, Scripture further teaches that the body of Christ — the Church — is the Temple with Christ as the cornerstone.

 

Eph. 2:20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; 21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: 22In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

So, we see from this brief overview that God’s Word does not allow for the errant thinking and eisegesis that comes with Christian Zionism and Dispensationalism. Those movements, while perhaps well intended, are anti-Christ. They are in contradiction to the clear teaching of God’s Word. Scripture focuses us on the Lord Jesus Christ who is the fulfillment of all God’s promises. Scripture teaches us that to look for more fulfilled promises for Christless Israel or to look for a future Temple is to war against God.

In the end, Jews may gather back in Israel, and they may yet build a third temple but all that will be is more stink of blasphemy in the nostrils of God. It will not mean a damn thing in terms of fulfilled prophecy.

 

 

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Modern Israel Is Not What the Christian Zionists Say It Is

To believe that the modern state of Israel is the fulfillment of prophecy, as the Dispensationalists and Christian Zionists do, is to sever the line of Scripture leading to Jesus. Jesus repeatedly speaks as such.

“Therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to [another] people who will produce the fruit of it.”   Mt. 21:43

Of course, Christ is referring to the Church here in Mt. 21. There are not promises left to chthonic Israel and as such the current modern state of Israel cannot be the fulfillment of prophecy because Christless Israel has been stripped by God.

Luke 13:7 Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? 8 And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: 9 And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.

Israel did not bear fruit and so it was cut down. Chthonic Israel is deleted. There are no promises to a modern Christless Jewish people.

And when He saw a fig tree by the wayside, He came to it and found nothing thereon, but leaves only. And He said unto it, “Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever.” And immediately the fig tree withered away. (Mt. 21:19)

This is because all the promises were ever only for the Jew who was one inwardly, who knew the circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit. Never by the letter (Romans 2:29).

The New Testament crowns the Church as the new Israel of God and declares that it is the inheritor of all the OT promises, and the land the Church inherits is the whole world (Eph. 6:2-3, Mt. 5:5) and not some desert dirt in the Middle East. Dispensationalists and Christian Zionists who insist that chthonic Israel has some kind of divine claim to the land are in violation of the whole testimony of Scripture.

We owe those people, who Paul says are the children of the slave woman (Galatians 4) nothing but the command that they repent. It is idiotic to think that God will not bless us if we fail to bless the sons of Hagar.

These are not God’s chosen people. They are, as the Scripture teaches, the synagogue of Satan. They are those who say that they are Jews but are not, but are liars (Rev. 3:9). “Christian” support for Zionism based on Jews being owed the inheritance of Father Abraham because they are the sons of Hagar traced through Ishmael is crushed under the weight of a proper hermeneutic.

All this Dispensational and Christian Zionism has poisoned the minds of many in the Christian Church and has turned the Christian Church into an outpost for non-Christian blasphemous thinking.