Pastoral Ethics

Philemon 1:14 (KJV)

But without thy mind would I do nothing; that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly.

I came to see the little epistle to Philemon as a lesson in pastoral ethics. Certainly, Paul was not pastoring at this time, but he was always much more than a pastor and an example to all pastors. I do not believe Philemon is a pastor either but that a church did meet in his house. Onesimus was a slave belonging to Philemon who ran away, probably stole from him to pay for his flight and ended up in Rome where he met Paul. Paul led him to the Lord, discipled him for a period of time sufficient that Onesimus had the character to follow Paul’s instructions and return to Philemon. Paul admitted that Onesimus was profitable to him and that he would have liked to keep him with him. 

Paul could have reasoned that he had done more good with Onesimus than Philemon did and the Onesimus was more likely to grow spiritually with him than with Philemon, who had not even won him to Christ. But Paul was not willing to keep him without Philemon’s approval. He trained Onesimus to return, sent him with a letter that did not actually request Onesimus return and perhaps Onesimus did not know the details of and offered to repay any damage Onesimus had caused. 

Pastors could learn from this. When a member of another church comes to them, their job is to return them in better spiritual condition than they found them. Even if they would like to keep them in their own ministry, it is not appropriate for them to say so. 

• They should work with them until they develop the character to return a better member than they were. They are not to judge the abilities of the other pastor. 
• They would be wise never to express a desire that the member remains with them, even when they have that desire. 
• They should contact the other pastor, not to tell them that a member visited in their church but to ask their pastor what his mind is concerning them. 

That would be pastoral ethics. 

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields

It’s Complicated

The other day, while on my daily visit with God, I came across David’s use of the word, integrity. He said Psalm 26, that he had walked and would walk in his integrity.

Interestingly, one of the Hebrew definitions of the word translated integrity there is “simplicity.” Integrity is, in other words, keeping things simple.

Every once in awhile I will receive a survey. It will be something like “why do I prefer this particular deodorant, or some silly thing like that. The first part of the survey is always a series of questions meant to establish a baseline and determine the demographics of their survey audience. They ask questions like general age, educational background, ethnic background, annual income and etc. one of those questions regards marital status and it is not uncommon for that question to be multiple choice:

• Single
• Married
• It’s complicated

No it’s not. It is not complicated. A person is either married or single. The only thing that complicates the point is that some people don’t wish to be identified according to the obvious. 

This demonstrates a key issue in our world today. Walking in integrity, doing the right thing, is not complicated at all. It is as simple as accepting the authorities that determine right and wrong, and choosing right over wrong. What complicates the situation is that we want to reconcile what is right with what we want.

We do this with the Word of God all of the time. We know what the Bible says, we might even claim we believe what the Bible sys, but when what the Bible says doesn’t fit what we want, we call it complicated. “It’s not that simple.” will be our response to challenges about our behavior, beliefs or circumstances. Truth is, it is simple. The Bible is right. If we simply do what we understand the Bible to teach it is simple. The only complication is when we decide we think differently, we want something else or we can’t bring ourselves to comply to the Word of God.

It’s that simple. Do as God teaches regardless the consequences. That’s integrity

Vacation Deprivation

I have the solution for our countries woes! I heard it on the radio just this morning. According to a survey put out by Expedia.com America suffers from Vacation deprivation. Unlike our European counterparts, who get on average at least 30 days vacation per year and then both use all of their days a relish in the memories and tales of those vacation days, Americans only get on average, 14 days of vacation per year, generally only take half of them and seldom speak about their vacation once they are home. And, again according to the Expedia.com report, the reason we suffer from this deprivation is because we also suffer from a "Protestant work ethic." There it is. Our problem is that we work like Christians and not like Europeans.

I have a number of issues with this radio report:
First, who wants to be like Europe?
There is a reason our forefathers hazarded their lives to begin again in this new land. There is a reason our forefather's children once again hazarded their lives to forge out a brand new system of government separated and completely different from their European monarchies. The European economy is in the dumps. With the exception, I think, of Germany, the whole place is about to collapse financially. Who wants to imitate that? Oh, wait! We already have. Our economy is also in the trash. Could it be the result of too much European imitation already?

And then there is the whole idea of the term "vacation deprivation."
Sounds like a disease doesn't it? That's it. Let's diagnose a person's lack of vacation as a disease. That will give them an entitlement. Then our already near bankrupt government will have an excuse to tax our already overtaxed population to pay for the prescription. Better yet, let's have our government step up to the aide our afflicted by requiring those businesses, who are already taxed to the gills, to pay more taxes for exposing their helpless workers to this dread disease. And once we have punished them sufficiently for their negligence, let's have our government force them to pay for the poor souls whose sorry hap in life has been to work for these companies to have sufficient vacation time to reverse the symptoms of their obviously now incurable disease.

And how about that other American disease, the "Protestant Work Ethic"?
I do not believe that true Christians are Protestants, but let's leave that alone for today. There we go, blame every problem the world has on the Christian mentality. The world was, after all, so much better off before Jesus Christ came from heaven and dwelt among us. I can see it now; Christ's real trouble was vacation deprivation. He could have lived to a ripe old age if He had only taken more time off. He did, after all, only get to work for three and a half years before He died. And then there are the apostles. The Apostle Paul's real problem was vacation deprivation. Can you imagine how badly he must have suffered from this horrible illness after planting churches all over the Middle East and into the regions of the west, writing half of the New Testament and turning the world upside down with his doctrine? He probably thought being beheaded was a break!



Marvin McKenzie
In the fields

The Surprising Subculture

The Christian (and otherwise) internet is all abuzz ollowing the expose' on 20/20 of the dangerous subculture of the Independent Fundamental Baptist Churches in America. The expose' was to say the least, biased and sensationalized. This sort of one sided reporting is typical of a media system whose purpose is as much about preaching their own irreligious religion as it is about making money. Little in the system could be considered journalism. They do not mean to tell a story, they mean to interpret it.

Still, that there was a story, speaks volumes that ought to be heard, especially among those who consider themselves to be Independent Fundamental Baptists. Some observations of my own:

As with any honest people, Independent Fundamental Baptists ought to police themselves.
The Scripture gives us instruction to do so. Fundamental Baptists are, like any other human being, human beings. We sin. We have some who do so to extremes. We should not shy away from discipline. The fact is, we are sorely lacking in accountability.

However, discipline was the very thing the expose' "exposed" and denounced.
The whole point was that it is abusive of a Baptist church to expect accountability among its membership. The fact is we could never put into place a system of accountability that is true to the Scripture and pleasing to the world.

As to the denigrating title of "subculture" so what?
Baptist people have always been the smallest number of those professing faith, while at the same time being among the most influential people in the planet. The Ana Baptists' writings and indeed very lives were all but wiped out during the dark ages. Still they kept reaching souls. Luther and Calvin were both influenced to some degree by the Baptists of their day. The bedrock of the faith rests not on the large denominational systems of Catholicism or Protestantism, but upon that almost unknown group of believers whose faith was so despised by the world in their day that they were forced to meet in secret places and were often hunted down in the effort to eradicate them.

I am not a fan of much that is found in Fundamentalism. I do not believe much of it is even Baptist (though it might wear the label). Still I am a believer in fundamental doctrines of the faith and I am convicted as a Baptist. This is the sort of thing that makes the faithful, well, faithful.

Marvin McKenzie
In the field

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