Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Eli’s Sin Will Be The Death of Your Church

preistGod despises bad pastors.

In the book of 1 Samuel, three corrupt priests receive a large amount of screen time. Eli and his worthless sons are condemned in 1 Samuel 2:12-16, and again in 1 Samuel 2:17-36, and again in 1 Samuel 3:11-24. And all of 1 Samuel 4 is dedicated to their destruction. They are mentioned more than Hannah, Jesse, and many other names that we are familiar with. Yet, we talk about them very little. I too was unaware of how much screen time they received until I started preaching though 1 Samuel.

Let’s talk about them.

What is their great sin? Eli’s sons stole God’s sacrifices. They picked the choicest meats. When God fearing people refused to defer to the priest, Eli’s sons threatened their church members with physical violence. They would say, “No you must give it to me now, and it not, I will take it by force (1 Sam. 2:16).” Taking note of their abuses, God declared that the “sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord, for the men treated the offering of the Lord with contempt (1 Sam. 2:17).” And God deems these men beyond hope and kills them (1 Sam. 3:14; 4:11).

And though Eli’s sons experience the wrath of God, Eli received the majority of the blame. The prophet in 1 Samuel 2 was sent to Eli and asked Eli bluntly, “Why then do you scorn my sacrifices and my offerings that I command for my dwelling, and honor your sons above my by fatting yourselves on the choicest parts of every offering of my people Israel (1 Sam. 2:29)?”  God kills Eli, wipes out his family, and takes the Ark of God away from the tabernacle because Eli loves his sons more than God.

However, we should not write off Eli has some super-villain who always had it out for righteousness, love, and mercy. He was not going around pouring pepper in people’s coffee, slapping babies, and getting drunk every night. He blessed Hannah (1 Sam 1:17). He trained Samuel. He was not all bad. But when pushed came to shove, he chose to honor his sons instead of God. Instead of condemning his sons and overseeing their execution, Eli joined them. Consequently, he doomed himself, his family, and his ministry to destruction.

The Scottish theolog Alexander Maclaren noted:

But all was marred by a fatal lack of strong, stern resolve to tolerate no evil which he ought to suppress. Good, weak men, especially when they let foolish tenderness hinder righteous severity, bring terrible evils on themselves, their families, and their nation.

I fear many of our churches are dying for just this reason. These men are not all bad. These pastors preach some decent sermons. They show up at the hospital from time to time. But when sin arises in their midst, they look the other way. They lack the resolve to meaningfully apply what they preach.

Sure, they may encourage people to try to fix their marriage instead of divorcing; they may encourage the drunk to stop drinking; and, they may encourage the abuser to stop being angry. But if their light advise is rejected by the congregant, they back off like Eli did (1 Sam. 2:22-25). They refuse to discipline the man who is leaving his wife to pursue the sexier more understanding girl down the street. They refuse to bring a second witness to the drunk’s house to call him to change. They refuse to put out the sexual immoral, the covetous, the angry, the thieving ,the arrogant, and the prideful.

After all, won’t people talk? Won’t people get angry and leave? Won’t people in the community think our church is harsh, unkind, and unloving? Won’t people stop attending and stop giving? If we value the worship and holiness of God more than the feelings of men and women, we will lose the buts in our seats and dollar in our bank account. We can’t risk offending their people.

Thinking the above, many pastors refuse to address the unchecked sin in their congregation. They refuse to talk about sin outside of Sunday morning. They refuse to meaningfully counsel with those overcome with sin. They refuse to bring unrepentant sinners before the church, acting as if Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 7 did not exist. They refuse to honor God in heaven more than the people in their pews. And though God is gracious, he will eventually crush those who lead his church to make much of the emotions of men and women. God will not let Christian leaders mock his name forever. God will act; he will depose pastors and remove churches.

Brothers and sisters, I believe most of our SBC churches are in decline for this very reason. Many of the pastors in our convention are more concerned about not offending Susie, Sally, and Jim Bob than they are about worshiping God. And sadly, most of these pastors and their hand-selected leaders have no plans to change course. After all, they deem their failure to address sin to be mark of spiritual maturity. Ah how peaceful their dead churches seem to be.

“Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump (1 Cor. 5:6)?”

Because these pastors do not address sin, their congregations become more and more sinful. People like Eli’s son begin to dominate business meetings, Sunday school classes, and benevolence ministries. Soon, the whole church is driven by man-centered goals and the gospel fades into the background. Those who love Jesus are shown the door.

Admittedly, most pastors will not stand idly-bye as their churches slide into decline. They will launch a new small group ministry. They will rebrand an existing program. And, they will seek to update the music ministry, calling the choir director their “Creativity Team Leader.” (Goosebumps anyone?)

But will these pastors make the glory of God the primary thing? Will they recover their first love? Will they risk all to obey and honor God? Sadly, the answer is no. As a result of their leadership, their church will be obliterated. God does not honor those who mock his word.

Brothers and sisters until we care about the glory of God, we have no reason to hope for change. We have no reason to expect our dying churches will once again breathe the life of the gospel. Evangelism programs won’t save us. As James MacDonaled noted,

Placing evangelistic ministries above the mission of the God’s glory is the single most destructive error in the church today.”

Cooperation with other SBC entities at the state and national level won’t save us. And updated contextualization strategies won’t save us. Repentance will save us. Once again honoring God above all else will save us!

God spent a lot of time discussing Eli and his sons, because he is deeply concerned about his glory and hates those who love people more than God. Are you willing to make the glory of God your main concern? Are you wiling to call you pastor or pastors to do that? Or are you content to wait for the coming judgment? God despises bad pastors.  Do you? Their churches will die. Will yours?

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Why Should Baptists Celebrate A German Monk’s Reformation?

Martin Luther accidentally drove a nail into heart of the Roman Catholic Church on October 31, 1517. The Augustine Monk, preacher, and theology professor posted his 95, seeking to restore the seldom heard gospel to her rightful position of prominence within the church.

What Did Luther Oppose?

The Catholic Church had replaced the gospel with the sacramental system. Rome’s theologians taught that God saved those who nobly sought after grace. God wiped away the stain of original sin at baptism. God then justified everyone who sought to please God by doing good works. After conversion, God required his children to pay for their sins through the sacraments of Mass and penance. The bread inoculated believers from the allure of sin. And penance proscribed by the priest would absolve believers from the punishment of their sins.

Recognizing that many Christians could not pay off their sin debt before death, the Catholic Church created the doctrine of purgatory, a place between heaven and hell where believers paid off their remaining sins through holy suffering.

By 1517, the church had also launched an aggressive campaign to sell indulgences, little pieces of paper that promised to absolve Christians from their sins and to spring those already deceased from purgatory. With the Pope’s blessing, believers could go past go and collect their $200 of religious merit by donating money toward the construction of St. Peter’s Cathedral.

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Concerned with the Church’s doctrinal drift and also its moral decay, Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg, seeking to bring it back to the gospel. Luther had tried the sacramental system and found it powerless to forgive sins.

Luther’s Story of Salvation

After entering monastic life because he made a rash promise in the middle of thunderstorm, Luther spent years attempting to earn his salvation. He prayed, fasted, slept on cold floors, and confessed sins for hours at a time. Reflecting on his time in the monastery Luther noted, “if ever a monk got into heaven through monasticism, I should have been that man.” Yet, Luther never experienced liberation from sin and death.

Then as Luther studied the Psalms and Romans, he came to realize that no one could be good enough to earn salvation. As Psalm 51:2-3 said,

God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see  if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.

God demanded perfect obedience, yet people could not be perfect. This knowledge of God’s commands and of his inability to meet those demand drove Luther to anger. Luther said, “I hated the righteousness of God who punishes sinners.”

Then, Luther read Romans 1:17 “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” The light bulb went off. He finally understood that salvation was not based upon earning grace. God did not save those who were good. God saved those who believed. Commenting on the moment of his salvation, Luther wrote,

“There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is…a gift of God, namely by faith…the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel…God justifies us by faith…Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.”

As theologian Kevin J. Vanhoozer noted, “[Luther] suddenly realized that God’s righteousness was not a demand but a donation: a divine gift.” Having recovered the gospel, Luther believed upon Jesus, clung to the cross for justification, and experienced the joy of heaven that he had been longing for.

Why The 95 Theses?

With the nailing of the 95 Theses, Luther attempted the engage the church in a gospel centered debate that would help the church recover the gospel that had liberated his soul. He wanted to work with the Pope and the leaders of the Catholic Church in an attempted to reform the church. Before things turned nasty, Luther described Pope Leo X as being a “very good pope…whose integrity and learning are a delight to all upright persons.” Luther believed he and the Pope could spread the glorious news that “The law says, “do this,” and it is never done. Grace says, “Believe in this,” and everything is already done.”

Why The Split?

But the Pope and the Cardinals were not interested in becoming “theologians of the cross” with Luther. Despite Luther’s initial impression, the theologians of Rome were not uniformed men driven by the chaotic winds of human opinion. The leaders of the Catholic Church willfully taught salvation by grace and works. They understood the gospel of the cross and rejected it. When the Catholic Church officially responded to the Reformation in 1547 at the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church plainly stated:

If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema. – Cannon 9. 

Though the Catholic Church recognized some of the abuses listed in Luther’s 95 Theses, she did not accept the doctrines of grace and of scriptural authority that drove Luther’s conclusions. Consequently, the Pope’s representatives ordered Luther to repent of his gospel teaching.

After taking a day to compose his thoughts, Luther famously responded to Catholic Church’s demands with these Words in 1521 at the Diet of Worms:

If, then, I am not convinced by proof from Holy Scripture, or by cogent reasons, if I am not satisfied by the very text I have cited, and if my judgment is not in this way brought into subjection to God’s word, I neither can nor will retract anything; for it cannot be either safe or honest for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise; God help me! Amen.

Hearing of Luther’s statement, Pope Leo X had no choice but to declare Luther to be a “heretic” who was to be “everywhere denounced.” With that declaration, Luther’s fate and the fate of the gospel believing church had been sealed.The Reformer’s attempt to return the church to the gospel had resulted in the last vestiges of the true church being jettisoned from Catholicism. The true church did not leave Rome; Rome left the true Church.

Luther defined the church as, “the assembly of all believers among whom the gospel is purely preached and the holy sacraments are administered according to the gospel.” As gospel preaching echoed off the walls of Europe’s churches, men and women began to repent and believe in record numbers. The exiled gospel of Jesus continued to march on! As Martin Lloyd-Jones noted, the right doctrines of the Luther’s reformation produced a remarkable revival.

And so today, we celebrate the German monk of yester-year because he rediscovered gospel. The revival begun in 1517 continues on today as protestant churches proclaim salvation by grace alone through faith alone according to the Bible alone. Because Luther was willing to risk death for the gospel, churches all over the world have the gospel of Jesus Christ today.

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Your Church Needs Elders!

EldersThe church stands as a beacon of hope in this crazy fallen world. Believers are able to survive the trials and storms of life by depending upon the Holy Spirit who nurtures and sustains their souls through the faithful local church which preaches the gospel and administers the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

God cares very much about the leadership of his church. He does not entrust the local church to someone who may have a penchant for leadership, a lust for authority, or a heart for novelty.

He entrusts the church to elders. Elders are also called pastors or overseers and bishops in the Bible. Though Biblical writes use three terms to describe the office, all three terms refer to one office, the office of elder or pastor.

bible-2110439_1920.jpgIn 1 Peter 5:1, Peter addresses the elders in the church. He does not address the elder but the elders, plural. God designed his church to be ruled by a plurality of men. A quick survey of Acts and the Pauline letters supports Peter’s assumption. Acts 14:23 says, “And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.” Acts 20:17 states,  “Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him.” In 1,2 Timothy and in Titus, Paul tells his sons in the faith to, “put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.” And in Philippians 1:1, Paul writes to, “To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons.” The local church should be led by elders and served by deacons (Acts 6).

The traditional Baptist model of one pastor leading a church surrounded by a group of deacons may be necessary because the church is new or in a state of ill health. But, the Bible calls for the local church to have multiple elders. The church should be led by multiple godly men who fulfill the requirements of Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3. The presence of multiple pastors protects the church from being destroyed by the sudden impulses of one man and from being dominated by one’s man ideas.

What Do Elders Do?

Peter commands elders to shepherd the flock of God that is among them, by exercising oversight. Peter’s idea of elders and pastors who shepherd is not unique to him.  In John 21:16, Jesus commands Peter to “Tend my sheep.” Peter is commissioned by Christ to shepherd or tend the sheep of God. The elder the pastor is to care for the spiritual needs of the people of God. The elder is called first and foremost to be a preacher. The words of Paul found in Colossians 1:28 should be true of all elders,

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Elders have been appointed by Christ to care for the souls of their congregation by teaching them and warning them so that they may flee from sin, grow in their faith and find hope in Christ as the adversities of life crash into their lives like ocean waves pounding the beach. The elders tend the sheep through preaching. Yes, they also exercise oversight and provide direction for the sheep, translating the gospel into real actions that benefit the sheep. But the elders are under-shepherds who have been charged by God to tend the sheep through the ministry of the Word (1 Tim 4:16).

 How Do Elders Shepherd?

First, elders shepherd “not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you” (1 Peter 5:2). The elders do not have to be forced into the ministry like a Dad who took little league coaching because all the other parents twisted his arm. The elders are also not those who serve simply because no one else will serve. They do not serve because they seek to impress their wives, in-laws, or mentors. The pastors who have been called to pastor do not have to be pushed into the ministry.

No, the good elders are the elders who serve  willingly. The me who are qualified to pastor should already have a heart for people. They should not see counseling, evangelism, and teaching as burdens that have to be done, like some divine honey-do-list. No, the elders should be those who jump at the chance to counsel, share the gospel, and preach. They should be those who seeks to willing serve others.

Second, elders shepherd, “not for shameful gain, but eagerly” (1 Peter 5:2)!  The pastors should not shepherd for dishonest gain. Many men are attracted to the pastorate because they see some of the nominal perks of ministry. They see that the pastor is respected by some men and women. They see people care about the pastor’s opinion. They see that the pastor gets a nice gift for his tenth anniversary. And they say to themselves, “I like that.” I like being noticed and being well thought off. I like getting gifts. I would like having a nice office. I would like having nice things and the occasional conference trip. Brothers do not go into pastor ministry for what you can get.

Rather go into the pastorate because you can do nothing else. Go into it because you heart beats for one thing and that is to see the kingdom go forward by the preaching of the word. Romans 1:15. He says,

So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

The pastors preach because they cannot help but preach. Title or no title, office or no office, pulpit or no pulpit, the elders will preach and teach. John Bunyan, the man who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress, was a shining example of this truth. When his judges offered to drop the charges against Bunyan if he would promise to stop preaching, Bunyan responded,

If I were out of prison to-day, I would preach the Gospel again to-morrow, by the help of God.

Pastors should tend the sheep because they can do nothing else.

Lastly, pastors are called to shepherd, “not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:3). Pastors are not called to domineer their flock. The word domineer is the same word used in Acts 19:16 when Luke describes the demon possessed man attacking the sons of the high priest Sceva. Luke writes, “16 And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered (domineered) all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.” Brothers, let’s not strip our people of their ideas. Lets not suppress their ingenuity and gospel gifts. Let’s not rule our church as a religious despot, manipulating the church structure to make sure our ideas always win out.  As Christ said in Matthew 20:25-28,

But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant. and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

The pastors are called not to domineer but to serve. They lead people to the truths of the gospel by serving them. advance the gospel by leading his family well, by visiting people in the hospital, by taking time to counsel with his congregation. The faithful elders lead by service.

And they serve willingly because they know their reward is secure. Their reward is not dependent upon the opinions of the old ladies, or of the choir members, or of the deacons. They are rewarded by God. Thus, the pastors willingly, eagerly, and sacrificially press on because God will give them, “the unfading crown of glory” (1 Peter 5:4).

How about your church? Do you have elders? If not, Why not? And if you do have elders, are they shepherding well?