Category: theology

As a young minister many years ago, I remember hearing an old pastor say that ministers have few friends. Then he said that he himself had no friends, save for his wife. It was the cost, he said, of serving Jesus.

My reaction at the time was a little mixed. I felt sad for that pastor for the feelings of loneliness that must have prompted that comment. I was saddened, also, for those in the congregation who considered him a friend – as I knew there were many.

His comment also made me wonder if I could be happy serving Christ with no friends in this world.

That same pastor showed himself to be increasingly cynical about relationships, and so I likely didn’t take his comment to heart as much as I should have.

Here I am many years later, finding myself relating to him more than ever. I do feel a dearth of friendship on the one hand and a longing for deep friendships on the other. I want to push back against cynicism too, having seen the damage that caused in his heart and ministry. And, of course… I don’t want to sadden those who consider me a friend.

Few value friendship, because few experience it.

C.S. Lewis

I preached a sermon last summer on what the Proverbs teach about friendship. While preparing, I ran across what C.S. Lewis wrote about friendships, and one remark stood out in particular. Lewis said that few value friendship because few experience it. Is Lewis right? Do very few of us experience friendship?

My own experience tells me that men struggle with friendships far more than women do. I’m sure there are exceptions, but through the years, that has been my observation. So men struggle with friendships more than women. And, sadly, most pastors struggle more than most other men.

So, here I am, a man and a pastor and I am often lonely and longing for real, Christ-centered friendships. What am I to do? What are you to do, pastor/Christian/friend, if this is how you are feeling? Here are four suggestions.

1. Resist making friendship your idol. Friendship is a kindness from the Lord. It is a good gift for which we should give thanks. God gives good things to his people! Friendship is one of those good things.

Yet, while friendship is a wonderful gift it makes a terrible god. The god of friendship will never satisfy the longing you feel or calm the restlessness of your heart. Only God can do that.

Making friendship an idol is a great way to push your friends away and strain your relationships, as you get clingy or jealous or demanding, or allow drama to creep into the relationship in other ways.

The answer is to press hard after Jesus Christ first, not friendship. You cannot allow your desire for friendships – or your loneliness – to grow into an idol in your heart, robbing your joy and leaving you empty.

Jesus never leaves us empty. Keep that in mind.

2. Nurture the friendships that you do have. While I was writing this post, I ran upstairs from my basement to make a quick cup of tea. While en route, my 15-year-old playfully tried to box my ear, my wife hugged me, and my 9-year-old asked if I would sit with her while my tea steeped. I also spent a minute figuring out my plans to drive to a neighboring town tonight with a young man for an archery competition.

It is easy to not put those kinds of relationships within our “friendship category” (my son, my wife, my daughter and a guy about 30 years younger than me), but that is exactly what they are – friends! My wife is my best friend on the planet, and I have never enjoyed a deeper relationship with anyone than the one I enjoy with her.

My son is growing up and we almost look eye to eye (if I am being honest, he’s a bit taller). We will be friends, I hope, for a long time. That little girl of mine who likes to sit close is my little buddy, which is another word for friend. And friendships don’t have to be squarely within our age demographic (I know this from the other end. One of my closest friends in life passed away two years ago from Covid19, and he was about 30 years older than me).

All that to say that we often lament not having deep and meaningful friendships, while at the same time not considering the friends we have and nurturing those into deep and meaningful friendships.

That longing for deep friendship should prod us to nurture every friendship we have. Those feelings should not cause us to merely long for friendships we don’t have.

3. Seek after new friendships, and decide that you will “fail falling forward”. There is a tendency in me to withdraw the moment I don’t feel the warmth of friendship from someone, or suspect that a person does not like something about me (or just me in general). My very counter-productive tendency is to retreat and give up on the friendship. It would be better for me to press in all the same. Who knows what the Lord may do?

Many times, it is just the surface awkwardness that we have to overcome, not deep issues making real friendships impossible.

So work at this! Friendships are hard work. Work at them!

4. Don’t buy the world’s lie that men can’t have deep friendships (or that pastors do not have friends). It is not true. There are plenty of biblical examples of real men nurturing deep, lasting friendships with other men while loving God supremely, and keeping everything healthy.

Men, think hard about friendship, and press into real, God-glorifying, brother-edifying friendships with those God has placed in your life. Don’t take one single friend for granted. Friendship is too precious, and too good a gift.

And remember, there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24b).

You probably have heard by now that the President of the Russian Federation has declared war on its smaller and peaceful neighbor, Ukraine. What has been building for months – cloaked in sinister euphemisms and deceit – has given way to open war as Russian missiles and artillery bombard cities, and invading troops pour across the border.

As I write this, Ukraine is feeling the full brunt of the Russian armed forces. With this post, I’d like to call on American Christians to pray.

Here are three reasons.

First, this war will surely bring about massive destruction and human suffering for the people of Ukraine. In a war like this, it is not only soldiers who will die. Cities will be destroyed and villages will be wiped from the earth and law and order in this normally peaceful country will be massively disrupted. Refugees and displaced persons will flee across the borders of the countries that neighbor to the West, and we are seeing this even now. Homelessness will abound, and many will likely freeze. As I preached in a sermon a few weeks ago, Christians care about this kind of suffering, so we should pray for Ukraine.

Second, pray because the world is much smaller than it sometimes feels. Ukraine is a long way away from Nebraska and many of us have never been there. Some would have difficulty finding it on a map. But history teaches us that wars like this in Europe seldom stay a long way away. Pray to the Lord, the one who is Sovereign over nations, that this war does not lead to a much greater war, involving many more countries, and bringing about catastrophic suffering and loss of life in the world.

Third, pray for Ukraine because our brothers and sisters are there. The church in Ukraine will surely suffer during this war. Pray for the believers and for their families. Pray for ex-pat missionaries who have decided to remain (I know a few personally!), and for the witness of Christ in the region. Pray for those who will soon enter a season of persecution, that they might have the strength and that they remain faithful to Jesus, and that many others will “become much more bold to speak the word without fear. (Phil 1:14)” on account of their faithfulness.

My brothers and sisters, I urge you to pray for Ukraine.

Nearly 10 years ago, a famous pastor from Minnesota was diagnosed with cancer. On the eve of his surgery, John Piper wrote an essay called, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer.” It has helped thousands of people walk through cancer with a determination to glorify God with and through and in their trial. You can read that here. I’m shamelessly coopting the title to encourage you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, not to waste our pandemic. I want to focus my heart and mind on glorifying God through this, and I want to encourage others to do the same. So with that, here are some thoughts about not wasting our pandemic.

You will waste your pandemic if you fail to set your hope in our sovereign God. This, of all things, ought to humble the world and help us see how fragile we are, and how little control over things we actually have. A tiny, nearly invisible agent has shut down the most powerful countries on earth – nearly shut down all of the world! That’s humbling, and it ought to focus our hope in God.

Our ultimate hope can never be in preventative measures or in science or in medicine, as important as all these things are. We have to trust in God. He is God over all, big and small. From the mightiest nations to the tiniest microbes – he is Lord.

You will waste your pandemic if you spend all your time worrying about the future or complaining about the present. By all means, do what you can to secure your business, or find other employment, or whatever you can do today to keep food on the table. But doing things is different than worrying. You have no idea what tomorrow will bring (James 4:14), so leave tomorrow’s concerns to tomorrow and focus your efforts on today. Meditate on Philippians 4:4-7 (memorize it) and preach the truths of those verses to your soul until they stick there.

And complaining is about as helpful as worrying. Which is to say, it is not at all helpful. In fact, there is little in this world that is more faith-killing than a complaining or grumbling heart. So don’t give in to that. Start a journal and write down, every day, all the things for which you are thankful. Share the things for which you are thankful with those around you. Post evidence of thankfulness on your social media. Let the world know that we are thankful to the Lord, for he is good and his steadfast love endures forever. Read 1 Corinthians 10:10 to sober up from the stupor of complaint, and then drink deeply from passages like Psalm 136:1-26.

You will waste your pandemic if you spend all your time browsing or ranting on social media. Social media can be a wonderful thing during an event like this – an unprecedented means of communication while we are sheltered in place. Many thousands of Christians will be watching live-streamed sermons and services this Sunday from the safety of their own homes. We can easily check in on one another. We should be thankful for social media (and related technology). I’m thankful.

Yet, these things can also be a great means of discouragement. Christians would do well to stop Facebook shouting at their neighbors for either over or under-reacting (according to their superior, better-informed judgment). Please remember that the bridges you burn during this pandemic will likely stay burned after this is over. And people need love right now, especially from the children of God. So use this time to show love to your neighbors. And maybe turn the phone off and go read a book.

You will waste your pandemic if you focus only on your own needs. The world is reeling from this. Fear is everywhere. Use this time to show the love of Jesus to those around you. Call an elderly person and tell them you are praying for them and ask them what they need. Gather a list of needs and people and pray for them, every day. Seek for ways to serve others.

And do good things for your soul. If you have extra time off from work, spend that time with your family. Start up some online prayer groups (Zoom is an excellent tool for that). Read good books, go for a [socially-distanced] walk. Play a board game. Get on the floor and build a castle with your six-year old.

These are hard times. Let’s not waste them! Soli Deo gloria.

I had coffee this morning with a person getting ready to leave for seminary, and we discussed the pros and cons of his new undertaking. I shared three things in favor of obtaining a seminary education. I am sure there are more, but I am putting these out there for others who are thinking through whether they should go to seminary.

Of course, I should quickly disclaim that I don’t think that everyone in ministry must go to seminary or that one is necessarily at a disadvantage for not having a formal theological education. I know many faithful self-taught brothers and sisters serving Jesus all over the world just as they should. Some of my pastor-heroes were self-taught. So seminary isn’t a hard prerequisite for all vocational ministry.

With that out of the way, here are three benefits I can see of a seminary education.

First, seminary helps a person become better acquainted with the theological conversation in the wider church. Seminary isn’t the only way to do this, but it sure helps and it is quicker too. One gets a birdseye view of the many issues, debates, and theological questions with which Christians have wrestled. One also becomes better equipped to discern the proper weight of the various theological issues that the church is dealing with, or has already.

Second, seminary helps a person become more precise in study. Of course, learning the biblical languages and hermeneutics and exegesis all greatly aid in the precision of Bible study (I think increased precision is the reason to study Greek and Hebrew). Also, in a general way, learning to weigh sources is super helpful to sharpen one’s theological study. Seminary pushes students in that direction.

Third, seminary helps a student understand how much he doesn’t know. We don’t realize how deep a lake is until we go swimming. Theology is more like an ocean than a lake, and seminary, if done rightly, helps us see how small and how close to the surface we are and how deep and vast the ocean really is. This is immensely helpful for one’s life-long pursuit of learning. It is also very humbling, which is a good thing.

As I said, seminary isn’t for everyone and it shouldn’t be required in all cases and for every context. What would my pastor-brothers in remote Asia do if it were? Seminary isn’t even an option for them. But here are three good reasons to consider seminary if you believe God is leading you into a life of vocational ministry.