Peter Witkowski Biblical Counseling, Discipleship

Mourning and Celebrating: A Biblical Response to Pastoral Sin

Christians typically either grab a magnifying glass or their broom when they discover that their pastor is no longer above reproach. Those in the detective camp pour over the disgraced man’s sermons, his aloof interpersonal skills, and his propensity to arrive five minutes late to everything hoping to create a diagnostic that will save them from future hurt. Those with the brooms take the opposite approach and attempt to sweep away all thoughts of the hurt. They refuse to talk about the sin and work hard to return to normal, excusing, overlooking, and ignoring the scandal. Though common, neither response aligns with scriptural principles. As seen in David’s response to the news of King Saul’s death in 2 Samuel 1:17-27, the appropriate response to the sin of God’s anointed consists of mourning the effects of his sin, hating the cause of his sin, and then celebrating good that God accomplished through this failed leader.

Mourn the Effects of His Sin

Though about to be king himself, David does not begin his lamentation with a leadership autopsy but with mourning. David laments the death of Saul because it obscures the glory of God. According to David, the Philistine women, the most vulnerable of God’s enemies, are gleefully mocking the one true God (2 Sam 1:19-20). They assume that God’s inability to save Saul reveals that God is weak and unable to give his people victory over their enemies. And now the enemies rejoice because they believe that the God of Israel is just another powerless deity crafted by human imagination to suppress and inspire the simple. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob needs no longer be feared or obeyed.

Understanding the confusion caused by Saul’s sin and death, David does not endlessly tweet about event or post YouTube videos discussing how to prevent future failures. He does not invite the world into the problems of God’s people but longs for the event to fade from the public consciousness so that God might once again be worshiped in spirit and in truth. David hates the Saul’s fall from power because it leads the wicked to false conclusions about the God of the universe.  

Instead of pointing to the ineffectiveness of God, the revelation of a pastor’s sin points to the credibility of God’s promises. It serves as a foretaste of God’s coming judgement when “whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops (Lk 12:3).” In other words, the rightful removal of a pastor through church discipline pictures God’s final judgment – that moment when all men and women are judged for their actions. In short, God always gets his man irrespective of his degrees, experience, and ministry footprint. Earthly embarrassment and punishments picture heavenly justice.

But what David understands, the world misses. Thus, David longs for the public discussion around Saul’s death to come to quick and timely end and thereby silence the mockery of the gentiles.

Mourn Causes of His Sin

While David wants the world’s focus on Saul’s death to be short, he does not sweep his own sorrow and hurt under the rug. Feeling the weight of Saul’s sin, David expresses a deep hatred for the events that led to Saul’s death. David goes so far as to pronounce a curse saying, “You mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew or rain upon you nor fields of offerings (2 Sam 1:21)!” In so doing, David does not blame the mountain for Saul’s sins. As noted in 1 Chronicles 10:12, Saul deserved death because he had “broke faith with the Lord in that he did not keep the command of the Lord, and also consulted a medium, seeking guidance.” In cursing the mountain, David desires the destruction of every action that led to Saul’s downfall. In the same way, Christians should so hate the sin that led to their pastor’s removal that they curse the innocent laughs that led to an affair, the covetous urge for better vacations that led him to steal, and the lust for power that led him to abuse his staff. They should allow their pastor’s sin to provoke within them a fresh hatred of sin and a fresh commitment to pursue righteousness. Instead of pretending that their pastor’s sin did not profoundly wound them, Christians have the freedom to mourn these scars.

Celebrate the God’s Goodness

But believers should not remain forever in grief. Rather, they should continually move from grief to thanksgiving. In 2 Samuel 1:23-26, David praises the Lord for Saul, noting that Saul fought bravely with Jonathan and brought about an economic boom for God’s people. David encourages the daughters of Israel to, “weep over Saul who clothed you luxuriously in scarlet, who put ornament of gold on your apparel.” In other words, David blesses the Lord for using an evil king to advance the kingdom of Israel.

Similarly, men and women should praise the Lord for using unfaithful men to advance the kingdom of God. Though a pastor disqualifies himself, men and women can still praise the Lord for using that man to bring to them to faith or for using that pastor to restore their marriage. The power of the gospel resides not in a man nor in a particular pastor’s office but in the Lord. And if the Lord uses a deeply fallen man to advance his kingdom and to bring you spiritual good, praise the Lord for his faithfulness. Do not meditate forever on the man’s failure. End your meditations upon the faithfulness God who uses both the wicked and the righteous to advance his kingdom.

Without question, a greater good is accomplished by those who live out the truth that they teach. David rightfully feels a much closer bond to Jonathan. He encouraged David’s faith whereas Saul defied God and attempted to kill David. Still, David ends his lament for both men on the same note.  He praises the Lord for using them to advance his kingdom: “Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely (2 Sam 1:23)!”

A Quick Warning to the Sauls

But in praising the Lord for the good that Saul accomplished, David does not provide justification for sinners and abusers. Rather he entrusts the judgment of the wicked to the Lord who declared in Deuteronomy 32:35 that, “Vengeance is mine.”  No unrepentant pastor, elder, deacon, Sunday school teacher, or a parent will be able to defend their slander, greed, or sexual abuse on judgment day with an appeal to their kids’ success, their church’s growth, or the doubling of their budget. Those outcomes will have no effect upon their eternal destiny. Those who live in their sins will die in their sins. They will know nothing of the blessings that came so near to. Take the words of Matthew 7:21-23 to heart,

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”

Though God uses the wicked to advance his kingdom, such usage grants no one access to Jesus’s throne.  To quote the Puritan Joseph Alleine, “You must part with your sins or with your soul; spare but one sin and God will not spare you.”  Pastor do not follow Saul, spare your sins, and die under God’s righteous judgment. 

Final Thoughts

Scholars believe the ancient Israeli army used David’s lament in 2 Samuel 1:17-27 as a marching song. Imagine them chanting the refrains on their PT runs or as they rushed to the front line. The lament’s common usage as well as the New Testament’s drum beat against false teaching reveal that pastors will continue to fall until Christ return. Nothing can immunize us from the possibility of future betrayal and hurt. But even when those dark days come, God will still accomplish his holy will (Rom 8:28). We need not become preoccupied with analyzing pastoral failure. Nor should we not excuse it. Rather following David’s example, we should mourn the effects of his sin, mourn the cause of his sin, and then celebrate God’s faithfulness. In other words, may we forever and always find our hope in God who will never fail us!

Peter Witkowski Christmas Devotionals

A 4-Part Christmas Devotion: Baby Jesus & Anna’s Unwavering Faith

Below you will find a reworked version of readings used in my congregation’s last Christmas Eve Service. Each year, I attempt to highlight the Christmas narrative’s connection to the four main truths of the gospel. This set of devotional readings examines the life of the prophetess Anna who was one of the first to declare the glories of the Christ child. The readings and their corresponding Scriptures which are listed in the titles of each section are designed to be read on Christmas Eve or on Christmas morning before you dive into the goodies surrounding your tree or any other time you so choose.

Merry Christmas!

God, Creation, and Anna: Luke 1:26-38

As Mary set off in haste to talk through her news with her cousin Elizabeth who had also miraculously conceived a son, a very old and very unpregnant lady named Anna once again made her slow and methodical walk up the temple stairs to pray and fast.

The eighty-four-year-old Anna had not always trodden this path. Like many of her peers, she had married at a young age and eagerly anticipated all the joys that come with being a wife and a mother. But the children never came. And then before she could celebrate her eighth wedding anniversary, her husband died. Joy and hope gave way to sorrow and the very depths of grief. And though none would have faulted her for descending into the hopeless bitterness that made Job’s wife infamous, Anna did not curse her God. Instead, she pursued Him with her all.

Being a prophetess, Anna knew that the world had not always been broken. According to the great prophet Moses, the moment of creation – those six days during which God sent the waves crashing across the soft sands of the shore, told the massive brachiosauruses to eat some leaves, and made man from the dust of the ground – was a good and pure moment. As the first book of our Bible notes in Genesis 1:31, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”

As Adam and Eve set about naming God’s creation and ordering the garden of Eden in the days that followed, they could not fathom the irritation that would come from a bug bite much less the ideas of sorrow, barrenness, and widowhood. Adam and Eve knew only goodness, love, and justice. The animals, the trees, and the wind moved in perfect harmony with them. More importantly, our first parents communed freely with God. In other words, the founders of the human race knew only perfect wisdom and goodness. Everything from the grass under their feet to the clouds above their heads was good…very good. 

But all did not stay good. Death had robbed Anna of her husband. The creator of the universe now resided behind a curtain which Anna could not even see much less pass through.

But all that was about to change. The Holy Spirit had told Anna’s friend Simeon who also faithfully spent his days in the temple that the consolation of Israel was coming! And so, far removed from all the important happenings, Anna prayed and fasted. And waited! 

Man, the Fall and Anna: Romans 5:12-14

Anna waited for the consolation of Israel because she knew humanity faced a problem that it could not resolve on its own. Though God had created the world good, Adam and Eve with the help of a snake had become disenchanted with their creator and had decided to eat a piece of fruit from the tree of “the knowledge of Good and Evil.” They believed that God had been using his law to unjustly limit and suppress their full potential. They thought that eating the fruit…that rebellion would end in glorious liberation (Gen 2:16).

As they began to digest the fruit, Adam and Eve did experience something new. But it was not power and wisdom. They discovered shame, nakedness, and death. And instead of becoming equal with God, they found themselves forever separated from their creator and at odds with creation. Mosquitoes would now bite, weeds would grow, and cancers would form. They had sinned and had committed the first act of lawlessness, breaking both themselves and the universe.

And unfortunately, what began with Adam and Eve would not stay with Adam. When Adam fell, he corrupted not just himself but all of humanity. In other words, we all die because we are all sinners in Adam. To quote Paul one of Jesus’s earliest followers, “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men (Rm 5:12).” As the American thinker Benjamine Franklin once concluded, “Nothing in life is certain except death and taxes.” While we might protest being labeled sinners, none can dispute the realities of death.

Though we also might think it unfair to be condemned in Adam, we cannot realistically assume that we would have done any better than Adam. When given the opportunity to choose between good and evil, we still follow Adam and choose evil. As Paul noted in Titus 1:13 both our “minds” and our “consciences are defiled.” We choose evil not because someone forgot to send us a Christmas card but rather because we are at the most basic level sinners.

Thankfully, no one is as evil as they could be. None of us has attempted to steal Christmas from the Who’s down in Whoville, laughed at Rudolph’s red nose, or denied Bob Cratchit the money needed for Tiny Tim’s surgery. But we have all harbored bitterness in our souls, lusted after that which was not ours, and spoken words that we wish we could take back. Like Adam and Eve, we have chosen evil believing that God has held something back from us. And now we all need a savior. To quote Paul again “The wages of sin is death (Rm 6:23).”

Anna knew this lesson well. She had experienced the groanings of creation within her soul as she dealt with infertility and then with the death of her husband. Though she had spent her life faithfully seeking after God, God still did not freely walk with man. As God told the prophet Moses, “Man shall not see me and live (Ex 33:20).” Even the sacrifices that filled the temple with a mixture of gruesome and savory smells could not restore what Adam and Eve had destroyed. They pointed to the solution but were not the answer to sin and death. Something and someone greater was needed! Anna was waiting because that someone greater was coming!

Christ the Hope of Anna: Luke 2:1-21

Though Anna’s life had proved hard and difficult, she rejected the lie that had snookered Adam and grounded her hope not in travel, alcohol, or shopping but in the Lord.. Despite her circumstances, she trusted in the goodness of her God knowing that “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all (Ps. 34:19).”

Then in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, her trust was rewarded. Luke 2:38 reports that she got to see the Christ child…the Messiah who could do what no other man could do. That little boy would live the perfect life that Adam and all his descendants should have lived. Then what Simoen, told Mary that “a sword would pierce through you own soul,” would come true. Jesus would be wrongfully crucified, having never sinned (Lk 2:35). But in dying on the cross and in rising again, Jesus would defeat sin and death, paying its penalty and then gifting us his righteousness so that he might create a people for himself. To quote the priest Zechariah who months earlier had prophesied: “the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Lk 1:79).” And Jesus does so not only for the sins of Israel but for all who repent and believe irrespective of their origins, talents, or gifts. As Simeon notes, this salvation was both “a light of revelation to the Gentiles and for the glory of your people Israel.” Jesus came to restore all that Adam had lost.

Though Anna saw but the very beginning of Jesus’s earthly life, she had every reason to rejoice for the plan of salvation depended upon the Lord. As we well know, the God who kept his promise to her and Simeon and to the saints of old to send a Messiah would also raise that Messiah from the dead. In the coming of Christ at Christmas, we see both the promise and the glory of salvation and the hope of redemption.

And like Anna, we too should rejoice afresh in the goodness of God this Christmas. The salvation of all who hope in Christ is just as certain as God’s previous promises. No matter our emotions, no matter how hard our life is, and no matter how long we have been waiting for deliverance, one day soon we too will see the Lord Jesus Christ. As the Puritan Thomas Watson noted, “it is nothing to follow God in the midst of all encouragements, but it is wonderful to follow God in the midst of all discouragements.” Do not lose heart friend, keep praying and fasting. How sweet will that day be for when we are all with Christ for those who clung to promises of Christ when all seemed lost? Take heart friend, Christ has come to save us from our sins!  

The Gospel and Our Response: Revelation 16:15a

In a few hours the waiting associated with this advent season will give way to the joys of Christmas morn. Like Anna, we will celebrate the arrival of Jesus and will gather round Christmas trees engulfed in presents and around dining room tables stuffed with food.

While the ritual of this advent season is all but over, another greater advent remains in place…the advent of Jesus’s second coming.

Though Jesus has come as a lowly infant, and lived, died, and risen again to establish his kingdom and redeem sinners from the curse of the law, the fullness of that kingdom has yet to arrive. That wicked serpent who deceived Adam and Eve still reigns on earth. Even believers must still battle sin, sorrow, and death.

For all to be made right in both heaven and earth, Jesus must come once again. When he does, only those covered by the blood of the Christ child will be ushered into the new Eden where everything will once again be very good. Those who have ignored the message of Anna will be cast into the fires of hell to satisfy the eternal righteous of our creator. Friend, if you have not embraced the redemption of Jerusalem as your savior, I encourage you to do so tonight. Come and discover the hope of Anna for yourself. 

Just as Jesus suddenly appeared in the temple to the delight of Anna and many others, he will also appear a second time without warning like lightening flashing down from the east to usher his people into the new heavens and the new earth…the new Eden (Matt 25:27). Take heart friends; the redemption of Jerusalem has come and will come again soon! 

Peter Witkowski Christmas

Christmas and the Blessing of Motherhood

One of the more striking and yet glorious wrinkles of the Christmas story occurs in the Judean countryside far away from the gold doors, the ornate costumes, and the roasting meats of the Jewish temple. In her home under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Mary’s cousin Elizabeth bursts forth into praise declaring, “Why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me (Lk 1:42)?” Then a few moments later, Mary the mother of Jesus a sings out, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant (Lk 1:46-47). In recording the first songs of Christmas, Luke reveals that mothers and motherhood are not secondary to but rather an essential component of the salvation narrative.

Faithfulness at Home

Though Catholics misconstrue the scene at Elizabeth’s house to be confirmation of Mary’s inexplicable sinlessness, the Greek text clearly denotes the opposite. In other words, God does not redeem only those who have attained some holiness on their own prior to salvation. Rather, the father saves and utilizes the humble, the worthless, and the broken. Mary was not inherently worthy of the honor given to her by God. What makes Mary worthy of praise is her faith. After rejoicing in God’s gracious and unmerited selection of Mary, Elizabeth notes,“blessed is she who believed. (Lk 1:45).” Mary not only heard the words of God, she acted on them and went to see Elizabeth. Similarly, when one of Jesus’s followers sought to magnify Mary’s physical connection to the Messiah, Jesus redirected the praise away from the passivity of Mary’s womb to one’s faith, declaring, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it (Lk 11:28)!” In other words, Mary is worthy of our praise not because she was sinless but because God chose her in her humility, and she was faithful to God’s word. And because of her faith and the faith of Elizabeth in the home, God was glorified, and Scripture was made.

Though many Christians equate spiritual greatness with what happens outside the home on stages, social media platforms, and podcast channels, God never ties his power and glory to human success. He just as assuredly works through a mom counseling her friend while her two-year-old decorates his face with applesauce as he does through the women’s conference speaker talking to a 10,000-seat auditorium. What matters is not the size and location of one’s ministry but one’s faithfulness in that ministry…one’s consistency in listening to and obeying the word of God. Because Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, initially disbelieved the message of the Lord and became mute while Elizabeth and Mary believed the testimony of the angel, these homemakers knew far more about the plans of God than those worshiping at the temple. In other words, the Christmas story reveals that our God is just as assuredly with the faithful and yet exhausted mother (and by extension the faithful and yet bedbound brother and the faithful and yet unvisited grandmother) as he is with the faithful and well-known conference speaker. God works through the temple and the home.

Final Encouragements

Dear sisters, when you are tempted to embrace the lie that your work in the home is a waste of your energy and gifting because the days are hard, trying, and exhausting, remember the testimony of Elizabeth and Mary. Your faithfulness to care for your children, to love your husband, and to care for your neighbors this Christmas season glorifies the Lord. Your faithfulness is not worthless or ancillary but rather essential to the advancement of the gospel. Press on for the glory of God!

And dear husbands, pastors, and elders, we should never lose sight of what God is accomplishing through the faithful witness of godly women in the home. We should cherish and praise our sisters as they faithfully raise the next generation, encourage the hurting, and tend to the needy. Like Paul in 1 Timothy 2:15, we should recognize that God brings about the salvation of sinners through the creation of and caring for children in the home. And we should not forget that the Holy Spirit is just as present with our moms (and anyone living faithfully at home) as he is with any pastor and speaker faithfully taking to the stage. This is not to say that we should redefine pastoral ministry or the role of the husband in marriage. Rather, we affirm that the Holy Spirit advance this gospel through both men and women. Just like the authors of Scripture, men should realize that that Holy Spirit can and does gift moms insights that can encourage, instruct, and bless the church. In short, we should see our faithful sisters this advent season as Christ sees them.  

The witness of the Christmas story is clear: God is glorified by faithful moms!