A new age has (not) begun

In both the Old and New Testaments, God's servants were generally obscure, unimportant (to the world at large), and laboured without seeking to be prominent. The world did not think much of them; they cared little about that, precisely because they cared much about God.

Do we secretly believe that a new age has begun, in which that state of things has been ended? Today, God's choice servants have long strings of letters after their names, large ministries centred around themselves with conferences, publications, colleges, long lists of accomplishments and followers by the thousand and ten-or-hundred-thousand?

We probably wouldn't say that we do believe that. Hence, I say, "secretly"? What is our actual mental model of what faithful, God-honouring service looks like? Is there a ladder, a hierarchy, to be climbed, one which is essentially a (lightly) Christian-coated version of worldly success and achievement? What sort of thing do we think, in our heads, ministry under the New Covenant looks like, and how it relates to what the unconverted world thinks of as impressive?

A new age has not now begun. The last day (when one will begin!) will certainly reveal that. Surely we would do well to let our thinking be transformed by the Scriptures in how we view God-pleasing service today - not conformed by the world.

God of the impossible

Christian ministry is essentially impossible.

We could develop that thought in several directions. But let's go with just one. Once we become meaningfully involved in peoples' lives; once, like Paul (and more importantly, his Master) we learn to serve not just "up front", "in public", but also from "house-to-house", we meet with certain realities. We meet with the impossible situations of peoples' lives, and the mess that sin (whether theirs or someone else's) makes of them. We come up against the labyrinthine maze of false teachings, false ideas and false understandings that have been blended together with fragments of truth in people's minds, and the difficulty of untying those knots. We see how many things are working against them, at so many levels.

How much easier just to re-configure Christian ministry as primarily an attempt to fill sanctuaries with listeners, run an efficient system of small groups, sell books, increase the numbers of podcast listeners,  appear at conferences, etcetera and etcetera. All the messiness of the lives of actual human beings recedes comfortably back into the distance. It remains at arm's length, and does not bother us with its messiness beyond the theoretical level of dispensing with wise ideas for others to look into implementing. Christian ministry then, instead of being impossible, becomes possible. We can do it, we can measure it, we can compare ourselves with others, and we can come out of it feeling pretty good (about ourselves).

It's a lot more comfortable to remain in the zone where we're doing things that we're capable of. But in actual Christian ministry, John 15:5, without the presence of Jesus, we can do nothing. And what is the point of Christian ministry which is not actual Christian ministry? Let us embrace the fact that our work is impossible, and throw ourselves out in faith into where we can only see blessing if the God of the impossible meets us there.

Pastors are not pundits

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/pastor-or-pundit/

Good article. This is a drum I've banged a few times, but the times call for it to keep being banged.

A point I'd not noticed before, but which is obvious as soon as it's pointed out, made in the above example, is that in the last century liberal pastors, who didn't have much of a gospel, used their pulpits to preach mostly their slant on politics. However today it's political conservatives, people on the political right, who talk just as much about politics and appear to (like historic liberals) essentially see the gospel as the means towards social ends. The main thing is accumulating and playing the game of political power: the gospel is a tool towards that end.

We need godly politicians, and we need people whose calling is to apply Christianity within the political realm. But pastor and pundit are two distinct callings. Today we have an excessive number who believe they're called to both. As the article says (by way of quote), there's little evidence that they did receive such a call:

"Most pastors have nothing particularly unique or insightful to say about politics. So much of “speaking prophetically” or applying the Lordship of Christ to all of life amounts to little more than slapdash criticism and recycled talking points."

If we could replace 95% of the pastors who believe that they're called to inform God's people about their latest hot take on political situations, with ones who were passionate about personally discipling the individual members of their flocks, or the cause of foreign missions, or serving those who are suffering, then nothing of value would be lost, and much would be gained. Let us all remember that one day we shall answer to Christ for how we use the pulpit.