John MacArthur: I beg your pardon?

On one of his ministry websites, John MacArthur tells you that he is - calls himself - "the World's Premier Expository Preacher" - https://macarthurcenter.org/the-expositor/ .

And yes, he does call himself that. It's his centre, in his name, and every statement it publishes, especially if it's prominent, is thus endorsed as his statement until he retracts it as erroneous. And that page has said so since at least June 2021, and so for at least 3 and a half years:

Why am I drawing your attention to this? Are we not meant to hide things in our brethren that are embarrassing or dishonourable? On the contrary, those who publicly represent Christ must expect scrutiny, and invite it; Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11:1, "Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ", and in Philippians 3:17, "Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern."

John MacArthur wants your attention to be drawn to this fact, so that you can sign up to learn from him. That's why he's put it in big type, at the top a main page of an eponymous ministry websites.

What to make of this?

For one thing, Jesus Christ forbids his servants to receive titles from men; how much more does he forbid men to award them to themselves?

Matthew 23:8 But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. 9 Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. 10 And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ.

Plainly this prohibition cannot be made absolute; it does not extend to titles that recognise and are used legitimately in connection with an office; Christ's apostles, inspired by his Spirit, used the title "apostle of Jesus Christ" to introduced themselves. Paul (1 Corinthians 15:10) told the Corinthians, again under inspiration, that he had worked harder than all the other apostles. But then, there, there were only a small handful of other apostles. Evidently, Paul said it knowing it to be objectively true - but let's also note the full context of what he had to say:

1 Corinthians 15:9 For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.  

As far as I know, though, there is no office of "world's premier Bible expositor" that Jesus Christ appointed for someone to take up. Out of interest, when did MacArthur inherit this position, and who was his immediate predecessor?

Again, Paul said: "Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ", 1 Corinthians 11, thereby drawing attention to his own example, which therefore cannot be absolutely wrong to do. But can you imagine Paul adding "and I am the world's premier imitator of Jesus Christ", even though that might actually have been true, given what we know of Paul's deep sufferings and what God, by the Holy Spirit, had to say about those sufferings?

You can make of John MacArthur awarding himself the title "the World's Premier Expository Preacher" what you will. I was quite sure that it wasn't me, so I'm certainly not disputing it on those grounds! Quite how MacArthur determined that he was the world's foremost explainer of the Bible, we are not told. We know that he is strongly against the concept of private revelations. We suppose he determined it some other way. However he determined it, he did think it was important to let us know.

Since you now know that John MacArthur has concluded that he is the world's premier expounder of God's word to man, and that he needed to tell you this, are you now helped to take him as seriously as such an important person should be taken?

 

Your analysis of the meaning of Donald Trump is probably neither insightful, useful nor necessary

Some of the below piece is written in a "tongue in cheek" style. I mention this since I once had a friend and colleague who I didn't realise for some time was taking my British manner of expression entirely literally. It's also possible that he had out-manoeuvred me with his own apparently unvarying straight-down-the-line acceptance of whatever I said...

It seems that a good number of pastors find it important at this time to provide us with their theological analysis of what God is now doing, in the election of Donald Trump to be US president for the second time, and how Christians should respond.

In general the will to carry on comes under severe threat before completing the second paragraph, though reasons for this vary.

One principle reason is that whilst still being a youth (stop sniggering at the back, Rehoboam was called a youth in his 40s) I've now been alive sufficiently long to see the vast majority of such analyses falsified by how events turned out.... and to note that such falsifications rarely result in retractions, resignations from the self-appointed prophetic pulpit, changes of procedure in future, or the like.

I and many of my fellow non-dispensationalists and non-historicists raise a chuckle at the ease with which advocates of those theologies manage to move smoothly from "the USSR is a key part of the book of Revelation" to "the USSR doesn't appear in the book at all", and from "the EU gaining a 12th state is a significant event in the prophetic timeline of Scripture" to "actually it's not in there anywhere", etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But unless I overlooked all the volumes of retractions and humble explanations of why one's theological antenna were so badly wrong being published somewhere, those more in my theological camp aren't at all immune from much of the same thing.

I can't help noticing too in the formulations of these theories, the habit of simply ignoring or treating as non-existent, any contrary evidence to the thesis. When I studied with a Bible college (which I've already clarified was so recently that I'm surprised I've made it out of the car park yet), I learned that if you want to make a convincing case, then you need to meet the contrary case's strongest presentation, head-on. Ignoring it entirely is the fast route to being completely unconvincing. This is unless you're confused about the difference between building a personality cult rather than a Christian church based upon the message God told pastors and preachers to faithfully transmit and neither add to nor subtract from.

I'm more interested in why it is that the subject seems so interesting, over and above many other subjects, that it requires pastors to give it so much sustained attention. "And make sure you give yourself to copious amounts of low-grade armchair punditry, especially concerning the latest shifts and moves in the realm of earthly power" wasn't one of Paul's instructions to Timothy. Paul was remarkably (and thus perhaps we could mark it?) uninterested in the political back-and-forth within the halls of Roman movers and shakers.

A good number of online American brethren appear to think that a pretty good chunk of what Paul *did* have to say about authorities is now obsolete because of the unique attributes of the American constitution and history, even if they would probably blush to say it quite so bluntly. But if this is so, it's very unfortunate: it appears that said constitution must be quite a curse, to have un-relativised the powers of this present age and brought them back, and so drastically reduced the effects of the dawning of the new age. Christ's death and resurrection had previously succeeded in cutting the cosmic importance of Caesar, the President, or whoever your country's particular Big-Cheese-Du-Jour was down to a much smaller size. In the New Testament, Caesar wasn't so much defeated in a head-on collision as completely out-moded and rendered to a significant degree irrelevant (even when he cuts apostles' heads off, since they died expecting to be sent immediately to the presence of the risen Christ and to shortly return with him in glory). Maybe consequently American Christians' major campaign ought to be abolish the constitution so that the realm of struggle for political domination using the forms and practices of the old order can be returned to its New Testament place? To get rid of said constitution since it appears to have raised the old, out-moded powers out of their graves and given them new life?

By all means, make use of your rights to represent the truth within the political realm; we'll all be affected, a lot, by what they get up to. But if you think that was what I was taking aim at, please go back to the first paragraph and I'll wait for you here.

I speak, as I say, partly tongue-in-cheek. A proper essay on the topic would have more things to say, brought out less elliptically. But I hope I have given you something to think about. It's not that politics is unimportant or uninteresting. It's not that there aren't things that do need to be said about it. But it is that, when a pastor of a Christian regularly treats it as very important and very interesting and an important part of his public output, it's concerning. It makes you wonder. We must all have our specialities to contribute to the overall health of the body. But those who feel themselves called to partake in armchair punditry about politics are with us in numbers that far outweigh either any apparent need or the brilliance of the track records they build up. I'd like to suggest we all make a close study of what really excited the apostle Paul, and get back to majoring on that. When you really see Him whom Paul preached, and grasp what he's done, it's not just in another league. It's a completely different game. Men lie, steal and kill to get their hands on political power, because they are completely ignorant of the game having changed, and that they've been left giving away their souls for the wrong one. Let's not be like them.

Churches as trojan horses

"They zealously court you, but for no good; yes, they want to exclude you, that you may be zealous for them. But it is good to be zealous in a good thing always" - Galatians 4:17-18

Whilst Christians are commanded to deal with individual cases with charity, nonetheless, it is impossible when it passes by your nostrils not to think that you're smelling the spirit of the world and to recognise it as such. Treating others with kindness and grace may yet co-exist with an unavoidable suspicion that something is very wrong, and that we'd be wise to a) keep a sensible distance and b) ourselves operate otherwise.

In the above verses from Galatians, Paul was speaking about false brethren: the "Judaizers", who sought to recruit the Galatian churches to their false gospel of justification through Christ plus obedience to Old Covenant laws. Nonetheless, it refers to a matter seen throughout the Christian world today. A matter rarely mentioned, unless I have been looking the wrong way.

The Judaizers presented themselves as being zealous for God's truth, and for God's standards. They, after all, preached laws that God himself had given, and which were good things. Was not being enthusiastic for those things a good? Who could question it? An apostle of Jesus Christ not only could, but had to, and did, not only question but refute it. The Judaizers' "zeal for God's truth" was a trojan, cloaking their own naked ambition. Such was their zeal for their real cause - their own pre-eminency - that they would quite happily exclude the Galatians from the blessings of the gospel of grace - which had brought those Galatians life, knowledge of Christ, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and incorporation into the people of God and the promise of an eternal inheritance - in order to achieve it. That's quite some zeal: and a very evil zeal.

Christian brother or sister, is it only people preaching rank heresy who possess that same zeal and who are animated by the same lust for pre-eminence, for man's praise and fame amongst those of their chosen domain? Do you not think you often caught a strong whiff of the same odour in many sound Christian institutions, conferences, colleges, ministries, websites, blogs/podcasts and the like? Many attempts to build one's own personal brand, and zealous entering into all kinds of pointless and empty controversies in order to further not the glory of Christ, but the development of someone's brand/institution/reputation?

It is good to be zealous for Jesus Christ, his honour and glory, and his priorities - spreading the gospel to the lost, building up his sheep in the local church, glorifying his name through good works in the home and community, and eagerly awaiting his return. But he forbids us to attempt to serve two masters (one reason for which is that since it's impossible, you'll only deceive yourself and others in the attempt). And he forbids us to seek any of his glory for ourselves. In Christian ministry, "the way up is down", and those who seek the true and eternal glory must be willing to be the servant of all: genuinely willing, not just willing to be praised by other men for their 'umble service.

Show no interest in your personal brand, because the one who will sit on the throne and judge the nations (judge you) on the last day, has no interest in it except insofar as he is disgusted with your displays of the flesh. Show no interest in the prestige of your institution, because if it gets too much of it it may become a rival to his purposes and need destroying in order to advance those purposes. Show no interest in a "wider ministry" that means neglecting the flesh-and-blood sinners who inhabit the place where God's providence has placed you. Leave aside your reputation except insofar as it will aid the preaching of the gospel if you are known to live in the light (and then with great care because of the danger of self-deception).

How many churches and other ministries are ultimately trojan horses whose real aim is to win fame, praise and boost the ego of their founders and followers? How many have little to do with encouraging the weak and stumbling sheep in Christ, and much more to do with building a personal empire? The last day will tell us. I shudder to think, because I can't help noticing that familiar smell. As a son of the first Adam myself, I know it well. May I die with Christ more each day, so that the only life I seek is that of his resurrection.