This past week, there was an awkward moment during class discussion in a Bible class I teach for a local Christian college. We were discussing Hebrews 10:25 which says “Let us not give up meeting together.” That verse teaches Christians to be committed to gathering together regularly and consistently.
I asked the students if the Christian college was a church, and so therefore, they didn’t need to participate in local churches nearby. They pretty much agreed that while the college is Christian, and it has numerous aspects of church family life, the college is not a church. It is a temporary educational institution with the vast majority of its constituents mostly 18-22 years old. Churches, however, are multi-generational, hopefully lasting more than four years, and with the purpose of the mission of Jesus in the world.
So I asked them, because the local church is so different from the college, and so important, shouldn’t the college, as a Christian institution, require them to attend local churches each week? The college does require them to attend chapel services on campus, about once per week throughout the semester. But the students all agreed that it would be legalistic for the college to require them to go to church. Far better that students exercise their free will and participate in church because they want to.
So far, so good. Here’s where it got awkward.
We then talked about the fact that the college requires students to go to chapel. One student spoke up saying that they felt that chapel this semester had been boring, uninspiring, and they even named one of the speakers they didn’t like.
I want my classes to be places where open discussion and opinions can be shared, and where people can disagree with one another. That student’s opinion is valid. But I shut down that discussion, as I felt that the naming of names was not in keeping with the Fruit of the Spirit. I later emailed the student asking if they had ever shared their opinion directly with the speaker. Jesus taught us to go to the person we have a concern with. But so often that kind of reconciling, healing, restorative conversation doesn’t happen. Instead we get upset, we talk to other people, we leave.
We justify it to ourselves by saying that we don’t want to make waves with the person. But we are okay making waves behind their back to others. Or we keep quiet about our concern because we are afraid to actually talk with the person. And yet, what does Scripture have to say about this?
In the next section of 1 Thessalonians 5 we’re studying this week, the apostle Paul has some really important teaching for us that relates to how Christians can disagree with one another in a healthy way.
A ministerium pastor recently told me about a situation in his congregation ten years prior. He was not the pastor at the time. Here’s what happened. At a church business meeting, someone proposed they fire the youth director due to lack of funds. The congregation voted for that, effectively firing the fellow on the spot. Church members with kids were bitterly disappointed in this decision. They walked out, left the church and in a single day all the young couples in the church were gone.
Leaving a church has become a very American evangelical behavior. Perhaps you’ve heard it labeled “church-hopping.” We American evangelicals can view our relationship to a church like we view so much of the rest of our lives, as consumers. A consumer is one who consumes things. We eat things. We use things. A consumer sees themselves as the one who has the will, power, control, and means to choose what they want.
In a grocery store, we have so many options for food choices. At the mall we can find the precise kind of clothing we enjoy. And in our internet society, we have even more choices, right from the comfort of home. Just find precisely what you want and order it. Voila, it appears at your home, sometimes the same day. As 3-D printing becomes more and more advanced, perhaps we’ll just print anything our minds can dream up, right at home, very much like the Jetsons or Star Trek.
Because we are so consumption-oriented, we have been discipled by our culture to think consumeristically about everything, including church. If things at church aren’t to our liking, we search for a different church, often including testing them out online first. Or maybe we just only ever engage with a church online. Because what is most important is that we’re “getting fed” from worship service, right? (Notice the consumption metaphor there?) And online we can just experience the best preachers in the world who are preaching exactly what we believe is the truth.
And if we’re not getting “fed” at our church we can and should, we think, move on to a church that has their act together. This consumption mindset is especially prevalent in so-called “Bible Belt” regions such as where I live in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, with our 700 some churches.
My conclusion is that it is rare that a person leaves a church for a good reason. Of course those people who leave believe they have a good reason for leaving their church. They usually don’t.
What this leads me to is reality that being part of a church family, especially a smaller one where you are known, is not always easy. It might sometimes be difficult. When the going gets tough, like disagreeing with a congregational meeting decision, it is very tempting to leave.
This coming week on the blog, we’re going to talk about Paul’s important teaching in 1 Thessalonians 5 about peace and unity in church families.
Are there areas of your life that are feeling dead? Areas where you long for new life? Maybe work. Maybe a relationship. Maybe it’s the general stress of life in 2025.
Just like he transformed the Apostle Paul’s life, Jesus’ resurrection is the pathway for new life for us. Paul would go on to write in 2 Corinthians 5:14-17, “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
New life is possible. In fact, God wants all people to experience new life. We can experience new life when we follow him. Throughout the past 2000 years, millions have experienced new life as they have chosen to follow to Jesus. And those millions of changed lives are perhaps the greatest evidence that Jesus’ resurrection really happened.
Changed lives could be instantaneous dramatic turnarounds. Changes lives could be small incremental steps over a many years.
Paul would also write that the same power that resurrected Jesus is available to us. In Ephesians 1:17-20 he writes,
“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead.”
Isn’t that astounding? God wants us to experience his resurrection power in our lives!
But how?
Spend time with Jesus. Quiet time. Alone time. He spent lots of alone time with God. But also invite Jesus into the normal parts of your day. Your routines. Your relationships. Invite him to work his resurrection power to bring new life to all you do. His love is for you. His heart desires what is best for you, for your family, your neighbors, this whole community and world. His heart is good.
Let me ask again: Are there areas of your life that are feeling dead? Areas where you long for new life? Maybe work. Maybe a relationship. Make it a prayer to invite his resurrection power in those areas. And then do what he did. He worked for healing, reconciliation, love, generosity, sacrifice. Give of yourself like he did.
There is one more piece of evidence that I believe supports the idea that Jesus resurrection is true.
Think about the fact that the Jewish religious leaders hated Jesus. I pause at that word “hate.” I don’t think it is too strong. When we read the Gospel accounts, the many interactions between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders are usually very testy.
They were highly motivated to shut him down. When they couldn’t shut Jesus down, they orchestrated a take down. Why? They were jealous of his popularity. They disagreed with his theology and biblical interpretation. They believed he was leading people astray from the truth faith. But there is another reason that I suspect motivated them most powerfully of all.
The Jewish religious leaders were afraid that the occupying Romans were going to view Jesus as starting an uprising. If so, the Romans could not only squash the uprising, but the Romans could decimate Jewish society, including the Jew’s precious temple. The Jewish religious leaders were not wrong. The Romans had a reputation for overreacting. To thwart a possible Roman overreaction, the Jewish religious leaders took matters into their own hands, and pretty much made sure Jesus was dealt with, through his crucifixion. (See John 11:45–53.)
Problem solved, right? Jesus is dead. No more uprising. The Jewish way of life and especially the temple is safe. Wrong.
Soon after Jesus dies, his followers start claiming that he rose again, that he was the true messiah. More and more people claim that they saw Jesus alive again. Then the movement that Jesus started really takes off. Thousands and thousands of people all over the city of Jerusalem start following the way of Jesus, precisely because of the belief that he rose from the dead. The situation, in the minds of the religious leaders, is now exponentially worse, and getting worse by the day. All their concerns that motivated them to kill Jesus are amplified.
There was one action they could take to put a stop to all of it. If the central claim of the Jesus followers is that Jesus ought to be followed because he rose from the dead, then the leaders could shut it down by producing the body. Imagine what that would have done to the early Christian movement. Exhume the body, parade it around the streets of Jerusalem, and the Christian movement falls apart, revealed to be a lie.
Those leaders were quite powerful, influential, had resources, and were highly motivated. I think it is rational to suspect they tried to locate the body. I suspect they launched an investigation.
But the religious leaders never produced a body.
And that, while not proof, is evidence that Jesus really did rise from the dead.
Think about the four pieces of evidences we’ve covered this week: the leaders never produced a body, the apostles (including the very unlikely Paul) gave their lives for the message of the resurrection, many people claimed they actually saw the risen Jesus, and all four Gospel accounts describe women as the people who first discover and proclaim that Jesus rose again.
That’s why it is reasonable to believe that Jesus rose again, and is who he said he was. That’s why it is reasonable to give our lives to follow him.
In the next post, I’ll talk about the final piece of evidence for believing in the resurrection.
In all four Gospels, guess who the first people are to discover and talk about the resurrection of Jesus? The Disciples of Jesus, right? No!
It wasn’t the men; it was the women followers of Jesus who discover the resurrection. The fact that all four gospel writers specifically describe that it was women followers of Jesus who first discover and talk about the resurrection is evidence for the veracity of the resurrection. How is this evidence in support of the resurrection of Jesus?
Because in the first century Greco-Roman Empire, women’s testimony was not considered valid. When the Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, told the story of Jesus’ resurrection, if they wanted to be more readily believable, they should have ignored the part of the women being the first to find the empty tomb, meet Jesus, and tell the disciples about it. The authors of the Gospels should have just skipped right to the part where the male disciples find out. In fact, the Gospels writers could have told the story like that truthfully. Not including details is not lying. Every author chooses to include some details and skip others.
By including the women’s testimony as the first, the Gospel writers actually made the story potentially more difficult for people in that day to believe. Why did they do that? Because it was true. Jesus really did rise from the dead and first met with the women. That’s what happened. By including the women, the Gospel writers took a more difficult path, which is evidence they were convinced of its truth. There was no need for them to change or ignore any details. They were assured of the truth of what they wrote.
Another piece of evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is that he appeared to numerous people. The women, the disciples, his brother James, and many others. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 6, that the risen Jesus appeared to more than 500 people at the same time. And, Paul says, many of those people were still alive decades later when he wrote that letter. What Paul is saying is that there are people who can verify this account. A lot of people. Paul wants his readers to know that the resurrection of Jesus was not just a fantasy story. The resurrection, Paul says, is a factual story, a news story, a historical event that was verifiable by many eyewitnesses.
Thirdly, consider what the disciples did in the years to come. Every single one of them would passionately give their lives to the mission of Jesus. They would face persecution from the Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem and Palestine, and from Roman officials across the Empire. They would travel all over the known world to talk about Jesus’ resurrection, inviting people to follow Jesus, start churches. During those missionary trips, they often faced physical bodily harm. They were beaten, stoned, jailed, crucified upside down, martyred.
Who would do that if they knew that Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead? People do give their lives for a lie. But it is counter-intuitive.
In my view, the Apostle Paul is a particular interesting case. He did not get his start as a Jesus follower. Instead, Paul came along later. He was a Pharisee, and a very passionate Pharisee at that. So when the early Christian movement started growing, Paul shows up and is determined to shut the Christians down. He was persecuting them. Rounding them up and putting them in jail or killing them.
Then something happened. Paul does a 180. Suddenly he is preaching Jesus as the risen one, the truth. Why? The account in Acts 9 tells us the risen Jesus appeared to Paul in a vision. That changed everything. Jesus changed everything. Paul now realized that what the early Christians had been claiming all along was true. Paul would give his life, his body, and eventually be killed for Christ. Why? For a bad dream? For a nightmare? No. He met Jesus, and Jesus was alive.
Is it believable that Jesus’ disciples stole his body? For sure, the disciples had cause to steal the body. They had just given three years of their lives to follow Jesus. They were invested in Jesus. Furthermore, he had made claims that he was going to rise from the dead. So to save face and not be humiliated that they had given the last three years of their lives to a man who turned out to be a fake, so the story goes, they stole the body to make it look like Jesus was the real deal.
But there are problems with the stolen body theory. The disciples were afraid for their lives. Remember when the temple guards showed up to arrest Jesus? What did the disciples do? Initially Peter pulled out a sword to defend Jesus. But that didn’t last, and all the disciples ran away. Later that very night at Jesus’ trial, when called out, three times Peter would deny that he even knew Jesus. So keep that in mind. The disciples were very afraid that they too would be arrested. Is it reasonable that they would then steal his body? They were hiding in the city, fearing for the lives. They did not have the courage to attempt to steal Jesus’ body and run away with it.
Also Jesus’ tomb was guarded by Roman soldiers. Roman soldiers were much more fierce and highly trained than the temple guards that arrested Jesus. There’s little chance that the disciples who were already fearing for their lives would have had the courage and skill to fight and defeat Roman soldiers, if they were to attempt to steal his body.
My conclusion: the stolen body theory is unlikely.
But there is another theory that some promote to refute the resurrection.
Another way to understand the disciples’ bold claims that Jesus rose from the dead is to claim that the disciples were having a simultaneous group hallucination. They thought they actually saw him, at the same time, but it was a hallucination. Perhaps they were so scared, so emotional, they had a group psychotic episode.
But a simultaneous group hallucination is exceedingly rare. Hallucination almost never works like that. Hallucination is almost always individual. There have been documented group hallucinations, but it is rare, perhaps when people are under the influence of a drug like psilocybin. Again, my conclusion: simultaneous group hallucination is a highly unlikely possibility.
Another rebuttal some have made to suggest that the resurrection of Jesus is not true is the idea of mass graves. The Roman Empire did have a regular practice of burying criminals in mass graves. When Rome performed crucifixions, which they did many times to stop uprisings, they could crucify hundreds of people at a time. Mass graves were a convenient method to quickly dispose of bodies. Some suggest, therefore, that Jesus would not have been placed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, and thus of course the tomb was empty. He was never buried there. He was still dead, the story goes, in some random mass grave.
But the refutation of that idea is the detail of the story which notes that not only did Joseph of Arimathea get special permission to bury Jesus, but also the Romans sealed the tomb and placed a guard over it. All of which would have been unnecessary at a mass gravesite. My conclusion: the mass grave theory is unlikely.
There is another suggestion made by some to try to disprove Jesus’ resurrection. The idea that due to his beating and crucifixion he was actually in a coma, and he never died. He was non-responsive and mistakenly assumed to have died. Thus when he was in the cool air of the cave, and the burial spices were on his body, helping to stanch his wounds and begin the healing process, he eventually regained consciousness.
This coma and resuscitation view, however, is in line with neither the severity of the wounds he received prior to his crucifixion nor the crucifixion itself. Either one, the beating or the crucifixion, were punishing enough on their own. Jesus had both. Some people did not survive the beating. And the Romans were exceedingly good at crucifixion. They didn’t make mistakes. They knew when a person was dead. The coma theory, along with all the others, the mass grave, the group hallucination, and the stolen body, are all unlikely.
What’s more, there is evidence in favor of the resurrection. In the next post, we’ll talk about some of that evidence.
Is this a believable story? For sure, the disciples had cause to steal the body. They had just given three years of their lives to follow Jesus. They were invested in Jesus. Furthermore, he had made claims that he was going to rise from the dead. So to save face and not be humiliated that they had given the last three years of their lives to a man who turned out to be a fake, so the story goes, they stole the body to make it look like Jesus was the real deal.
But there are problems with that idea. The disciples were afraid for their lives. Remember when the temple guards showed up to arrest Jesus? What did the disciples do? Initially Peter pulled out a sword to defend Jesus. But that didn’t last, and all the disciples ran away. Later that very night at Jesus’ trial, when called out, three times Peter would deny that he even knew Jesus. So keep that in mind. The disciples were very afraid that they too would be arrested. Is it reasonable that they would then steal his body? They were hiding in the city, fearing for the lives. They did not have the courage to attempt to steal Jesus’ body and run away with it.
Also Jesus’ tomb was guarded by Roman soldiers. Roman soldiers were much more fierce and highly trained than the temple guards that arrested Jesus. There’s little chance that the disciples who were already fearing for their lives would have had the courage and skill to fight and defeat Roman soldiers, so they could steal his body. The stolen body theory is unlikely.
But there is another theory that some people promote to refute the resurrection.
Some people suggest that another way to understand the disciples’ bold claims that Jesus rose from the dead is to claim that the disciples were having a simultaneous group hallucination. They thought they actually saw him, at the same time, but it was a hallucination. Perhaps they were so scared, so emotional, they had a group psychotic episode.
But a simultaneous group hallucination is exceedingly rare. Hallucination almost never works like that. Hallucination is almost always individual. There have been documented group hallucinations, but it is rare, perhaps when people are under the influence of a drug like mushrooms. This is a highly unlikely rationale.
Another rebuttal some have made to suggest that the resurrection of Jesus is not true is the idea of mass graves. The Roman Empire did have a regular practice of burying criminals in mass graves. When Rome performed crucifixions, which they did many times, they could crucify hundreds of people at a time. Mass graves were a convenient method to quickly dispose of bodies. So people suggest that Jesus would not have been placed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, and thus of course the tomb was empty. He was never buried there. He was still dead, the story goes, in some random mass grave.
But the refutation of that idea is the detail of the story which notes that not only did Joseph of Arimathea get special permission to bury Jesus, but also the Romans sealed the tomb and placed a guard over it. All of which would have been unnecessary at a mass gravesite.
There is another suggestion made by some to try to disprove Jesus’ resurrection. The idea that due to his beating and crucifixion he was actually in a coma, and he never died. He was nonresponsive, and mistakenly assumed to have died. So when he was in the cool air of the cave, and the burial spices were on his body, helping to stanch his wounds and begin the healing process, he eventually regain consciousness.
This coma and resuscitation view, however, is in line with neither the severity of the wounds he received prior to his crucifixion nor the crucifixion itself. Either one, the beating or the crucifixion, were punishing enough on their own. Jesus had both. Some people did not survive the beating. And the Romans were exceedingly good at crucifixion. They didn’t make mistakes. They knew when a person was dead. The coma theory, along with all the others, the mass grave, the group hallucination, and the stolen body, are all extremely unlikely.
What’s more, there is evidence in favor of the resurrection. We’ll talk about that in the next post.
Earlier this week I was reflecting on what Holy Week was like about twenty years ago at Faith Church. We had Maundy Thursday service on Thursday nights, then Good Friday morning we had the Cross Walk, including a big wooden cross with the wheels that we would take turns placing on our shoulder and walking it down the sidewalk along Lincoln Highway. Then we’d return for Good Friday service in the evening. Saturday was the Egg Hunt. Sunday morning was the Sunrise Service that we did together with two local churches. One of those two has a cemetery, so we had the sunrise service there, similarly to how on that original Easter morning 2000 years ago, Jesus rose from a grave. Then we would return to Faith Church for a breakfast, and stay for Easter worship. It was a marathon of church events, with seven separate events that required a lot of people to do a lot of work. My wife would joke that we needed to install a shower at the church, because our family of six was basically living here for the week.
I mention those events to illustration how we Christians can make big deal about Easter. Even in recent years when we have Maundy Thursday, the CV Ministerium Community Good Friday service, and Easter worship, we still have lost of celebration. And for good reason. Jesus died and after nearly 48 hours he came back to life. Dead people do not come back to life.
If Jesus didn’t actually come back to life, then we have a problem.
One of the earliest Christian writers, Paul, talked about this. He wrote,
“If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith…if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” 1 Corinthians 15:14–17.
Paul is not talking about a theoretical resurrection, or a spiritual resurrection. He is talking about a human body that is dead and comes back to life. A miracle. A supernatural occurrence.
That kind of physical resurrection is why we Christians celebrate Easter. We believe that Jesus is God who became flesh, who took on a human body, who lived for thirty-three years in that human body. We believe that Jesus, the God Man, had a real human body, and that real human body died. His heart stop beating, his breathing stopped, his brain stopped functioning. He was really and truly dead.
But there are plenty of people throughout the ages who suggest that the human bodily physical resurrection of Jesus is impossible. In fact we read about what might be the earliest account of people who disagreed with the resurrection in the hours after it happened.
Turn to Matthew chapter 28, verse 11,
“While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.”
That story is first of four arguments against the resurrection of Jesus that we’ll study this week. Is it believable that the disciples stole the body, thus making it appear that Jesus had risen from the dead? We’ll talk about that in tomorrow’s post.
Imagine you’re at Easter dinner with family and friends, and someone asks you, “You don’t really believe in the resurrection of Jesus do you?” You respond, “I do believe in the resurrection of Jesus.” They press in, “Seriously. A dead person comes back to life? That’s ridiculous, right?”
What do you say to them?
One response you might have heard is, “Well, the Bible says it, I believe it, and that’s good enough for me.”
Many people might respond, “That’s not good enough for me.” I get that. While I believe in the truth of the Bible, I also think it can be very helpful to have outside, nonbiblical support for the historicity of the Bible. For Christians, the resurrection is the most important event in history, so I believe it is important to at least try to verify the resurrection.
Do we Christians have any way to verify the resurrection of Jesus? Or do we just turn off the rational part of our brains and believe it despite its scientific improbability?
If verifying the resurrection means “100% proof,” then, no, we do not have that level of verification for an event that happened 2000 years ago. But we do have evidence. Lots of evidence. Not proof, but good evidence.
What evidence do we have for the resurrection of Jesus? Join me back here on the blog this coming week as we’ll talk about the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, and how it matters.
This could be a good series of posts to invite skeptical family and friends to read. Not that the posts will convince them. I am not making any guarantees! But I do think it will provide food for thought. I will be talking about four ways people try to disprove the resurrection of Jesus, and how to respond to them. And I will be talking about four ways that provide good evidence supporting the resurrection of Jesus.
Editor’s Note: This week we welcome guest blogger, Emily Marks. Emily is an adult & community educator. She and her husband Sean live in Lancaster, PA, with their dog Corvus.Emily grew up as a pastor’s kid, and therefore she brings a wealth of experience and a unique perspective to this week’s passage.
When we start to lose sight of the calling that has been placed on pastors to DISCIPLE, and we start distorting that calling with other business-like responsibilities as I mentioned in the previous post, we can stop holding the pastor in high regard because we’ve taken our eyes off of the calling. We start holding that person to misaligned expectations.
So really what we should be asking ourselves is not “What is the pastor wearing?” or “How much money did the pastor bring in to the church last year?” but “Am I being discipled?” “When I show up on Sunday morning, am I being challenged to live a more Christ-like life? Am I being offered resources to better understand Scripture? Am I being encouraged in my faith? Am I being given tools to grow in my faith and continue my walk with the Lord? Does my pastor’s life imperfectly but still mirror the life of Christ?”
If the answer to those questions is “Yes,” then I would argue it doesn’t matter how old that person is, it doesn’t matter if they wear a suit or not, it doesn’t matter that they have that one personality trait that you don’t love in your pastor.
Those are personal preferences, not the standard that we see Paul setting.
I’ve seen pastors dismissed for less.
I know a pastor who was dismissed because of his age. When he asked “Am I doing something doctrinally wrong?” his church responded, “No, we just wish you were younger.” That does not align with what Paul is teaching in 1 Thessalonians 5:12–13.
I’ve seen pastors not dismissed when they commit moral, ethical, or doctrinal sins. We as the church need to realign our expectation for pastors to what Christ has called them to.
And see when we begin to distort the calling on pastors to make ourselves look more attractive to the world or to hit the business-like quotas we have set for ourselves, we are not holding our pastors and leaders to standards that are appropriate, and therefore we inherently do not hold our pastors in the highest regard because our standards are not aligning with the calling God has placed on them.
Will there be one-off situations that are not covered in what I’ve talked about today? Of course. There will be odd situations with a lot more context and history, and individual churches and persons have different personalities and needs. I’m not dismissing that. There are places in Scripture that address behavior of pastors and leaders and teachers, but this passage is not one of them.
Because Paul is talking to us. The people that live life and work under the loving guidance and discernment of these pastors and leaders. So we would do well to think more about our behavior in this moment.
So let’s self-reflect.
When are times you’ve disrespected your pastor or their families or other pastors you’ve known or been shepherded by?
What do you need to apologize for?
What do you need to repent of?
Or maybe it’s not that serious, but you realize you need to change your thinking about something.
Maybe you need discernment regarding what is doctrinal differences and what is personal preference.
Pastors have a high and difficult calling.
Many of us in this room work with people and we know that people can be the worst.
And even if we’re generally not the worst: think of when you need your pastor. In those moments and others, we are not always our best selves.
Pastoral ministry is a tough job. It is a job and a calling living in the same space, which complicates it more.
With the calling comes a high responsibility as well. I’m not giving pastors a free pass here. And Paul doesn’t either. He says to love them for their work; if you have a pastor not doing the work, this is a moot point. I’m not giving them a pass; they have a lot of responsibility to live up to and should be held accountable when they don’t.
But right now, Paul is addressing the behavior, the attitude, the posture of the persons who are under these leaders.
And he calls for us to hold them in the highest regard in radical love because of the good and hard work that they do for us.
Editor’s Note: This week we welcome guest blogger, Emily Marks. Emily is an adult & community educator. She and her husband Sean live in Lancaster, PA, with their dog Corvus.Emily grew up as a pastor’s kid, and therefore she brings a wealth of experience and a unique perspective to this week’s passage.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:12–13, Paul says churches are to “hold their leaders in the highest regard,” so Paul is talking about respecting pastors and church leaders.
I think it goes without saying that we should respect those in authority; that’s probably been drilled into us since we were young.
But two things make Paul’s teaching different.
First, Paul isn’t suggesting to respect pastors or leaders solely because they have the title, but to respect them out of this deep love that I mentioned in the previous post.
But the second idea here is to respect the calling that has been placed on a pastor’s life.
We all have callings, not just pastors, leaders, or missionaries. We ALL have callings.
But we do also understand the calling of a pastor to be a bit different in a few crucial ways.
Pastors are not called to be CEOs.
Maybe you’re thinking, “No duh, Emily. A pastor and a CEO are obviously two very different things.”
But I’d like to share some scenarios with you that happen in the church that can begin to distort a pastor’s calling.
“There weren’t enough people at the Christmas Eve service.”
“There wasn’t enough money collected during that special offering.”
“Our VBS wasn’t as big as the VBS of the church down the road.”
“We should start looking for a different CEO.”
See churches are not businesses, and their goal is not to create happy customers.
Now don’t get me wrong: there are business principles that relate to churches.
A church might rent our space to other communities. There’s payroll. There are contracts.
There are business elements to church that sometimes a pastor needs to handle and take care of.
In terms of “happy customers,” it’s true that we want to be attractive to the outside world: we want people to want to come to church so that we can share the redeeming and life-changing love of Christ with them. In John 17, Jesus prays for “those who will believe in me through their message.” No doubt that part of our responsibility as Christians is to share the Gospel with people. And we certainly want to offer programs and activities that support families and the life of the church. None of those are inherently bad things.
But let’s not forget the base calling that we have been given: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:18–20)
Jesus didn’t say, therefore, “Go into your community and fill the pews with butts in seats and have the most attractive programs in town.”
Jesus didn’t even say to have the most “converts” or “the most people that ask Jesus into their hearts.”
No, he said “Make disciples, TEACHING them to obey.”
That’s a relational commitment, not a butt in a pew who might put money in the offering plate.
If you’re thinking, “Emily, you said this was about respect, and I don’t see that here,” but see the two are related. How so? We’ll find out in the next post.
Engaging Scripture 