Life in the Church Part 1: Pastors and congregants

Introduction

As you remember from the historical context surrounding the letters Paul and his team sent to Thessalonica, Paul had to leave the church prematurely. This account is recorded for us in Acts 17. The Jews stirred up a riot against Paul claiming they were starting a rebellion, serving another king other than Caesar. Thessalonica was a city that owed a great deal to Caesar, and were granted a special status of being a free city. You did not have Roman soldiers patrolling the streets or a heavy Roman presence in this city like Jerusalem. You could imagine the fear of the citizens of Thessalonica as this new religious movement took root in their city. They quickly kicked the missionaries out of the city (and were prevented from doing something worse by God working through Jason).

Paul is called as the Apostle to the Gentiles. He goes from city to city spreading the gospel. The book of Acts is like a highlight reel showing what Paul initially does in a city, then how he becomes opposed and has to move on to another city. Not much else is given in terms of the specifics of how he plants a church, as much as we modern readers may like. However, Luke does things on purpose. And if we can commit to some fundamental truths, we will be able to take some major applications from the book of 1 Thessalonians.

Three fundamental truths when approaching 1 Thess. 5:12-13

The Bible is the sufficient, inspired, inerrant, infallible word from God. 2 Tim. 3:16; The Bible works as a cohesive whole. The book of Acts is historically accurate. The works attributed to Paul were written by Paul.

The church is established by God and is a part of his plan. Matt. 16:18 “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Paul, although he was not a perfect man, was led by the Holy Spirit in his missionary journeys. He wrote his inscripturated letters under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, thus unifying his work with the totality of God’s word.

I share these things because I have largely been leaning on one main commentator throughout my study of 1 Thessalonians. There have been things in the past I’ve disagreed with. But on his comments on this passage I had sharp disagreement, and I had to wrestle with it. I tried to follow his arguments and be open-minded. However, as I searched the scripture I did not find the arguments convincing. I’m not going to bore you with the specific detail of the argument, but my biggest problem with it was the idea that Paul allowed his culture to dictate the way that he planted new churches. Furthermore, the implication that just because Paul did something does not mean that we should follow his example.

Who guided Paul in his church planting efforts? His culture or the Holy Spirit? Now, I’m not going to argue that Paul was miraculously untainted by his culture. Nor will I say that Paul lost all his memory of his background and upbringing in the moment he started planting churches. But are we really going to say that the Holy Spirit will miraculously stop him from going to the Roman province of Asia and send him West, but when it comes to starting a new church the Spirit will allow him to have a cultural free-for-all?

We live in a cultural free-for-all when it comes to churches today. We have churches that will spend half their budget just to entertain people and have completely forgotten the gospel. We have churches so large that there’s absolutely no accountability in the membership as laid out in the Scripture. We have churches that will ordain adulterers and homosexuals to be their pastors. There was a church in Canada whose pastor decided she was an Atheist, and the church wanted her to stay as their pastor!

So I can testify that our modern culture has influenced how people do church and plant churches. However, I’m still commited to the fact that God has a plan for his church. I believe God has granted us certain freedoms in his plan; however, a lot of modern churches have thrown out the idea that God has a plan at all! Our modern Christian culture in the US seems to want to know 1. God loves me and 2. How to have a better life with God on my side. And instead of looking at God’s plan for how to build a church we’ve decided to build churches whose number one goal is to make people feel good about themselves.

But as much as a critique the modern movement, the problem started long ago when churches decided membership did not matter. Did you know back in the 1800 you could receive church discipline, that is being removed from church membership, for visiting another denomination? The Puritan church would remove a man from church membership for failing to lead his family in daily devotions.

What happened? Well, positively, we may have gained more patience with weak believers. But negatively we decided that someone comes forward and makes a profession, they are automatically a member. We don’t know this person, we don’t counsel them, we don’t ask very many questions, we just pronounce them a member. And if they never attend another service at the church are they removed from the membership roles? No. Do we question them, “brother, you made a profession of faith, but now you are living like an unbeliever?” No. Why? Because we don’t really believe membership matters anymore. The only time that we would maybe consider removing someone from membership.

And we have all these think tanks trying to figure out why the back door of the church is as big or bigger than the front door. In other words, why are so many people leaving? And so they come up with answers, we need more discipleship programs, we need to be more relevant, we need cooler music, we need nicer preacher, and on and on the list goes. And there’s nothing wrong with discipleship, there’s nothing wrong with making the gospel relevant and understandable. There’s nothing wrong with a newer style of worship. But perhaps the problem is that a great number of people we march through the baptismal pool a log on the membership rolls are lost!

It was said of Jesus that zeal for the temple consumes him. How much more should zeal for God’s church consume us? Heb 8:5 “They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.”” How much more zealous should we be to ensure God’s plan for the church?

Paul had to leave the church of Thessalonica earlier than he wanted. At the end of this letter, he gives them a snapshot of life in the church. Before we jump into the text, I want to take a moment a slow down and reflect. I know that I have said a lot of uncomfortable things. I know that I have said some shocking things. I may have said some things you disagree with, or I may have said it in a tone you disliked. But I want you to be awakened to the fact that God has a plan for his church and his plan is beautiful. You may disagree with my interpretation, you may disagree with my tone and presentation, but please search the Scripture. See if it’s true. Look through the Bible with this question: does God have a plan for his church? If you find the answer is yes, what should you do next? Search the Scripture to discover God’s plan.

God’s Plan for the Pastors

Look at 1 Thess. 5:12-13 “We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.”

Paul, in the first sentence gives two commands sandwiched around the group to whom it is directed. The two commands are “to respect” and “to esteem.” And who are they to respect and hold in high regard? Paul describes this group with three actions. This is one particular group of men Paul is describing with these three actions: those who labor among you, are over you, and admonish you.

These three things are qualities of true pastors. And I want to spend some time thinking about these things. First, there is a plurality of pastors at one, presumably small, church in Thessalonica. Why multiple pastors? They are accountable to one another, they seek the Lord’s will for the church, and they share one another’s burdens.

Secondly, look at the three specific things they do.

1. “Labor among you.”

This word “labor” has the connotation of very difficult manual labor. Paul often uses this term to discuss the duty of a pastor. Alexander Strauch in his book Biblical Eldership: And Urgent Call to Restore Biblical Church Leadership written in 1995 puts it this way, “Caring for people’s spiritual welfare is stressful work. It is emotionally-draining, time-consuming, and often monotonous and discouraging. It requires a great deal of personal dedication and sacrifice.” One of the things a don’t like about a lot of preachers my age is they all set out to make a name for themselves. I’ve fallen into the trap sometimes myself. I remember when Covid hit and I was constantly trying to post things online and keep up with everyone at church. At first I made my videos public. And you know how it goes. I sat there to see how many people watched the video. I was greedily feeding on every little like and comment I got. And it grew depressing and tiresome very quickly. And I often need the reminder that I’m not called to be the world’s pastor, I’m called to be your pastor. And this is what Paul says of these pastors, they “Labor among you.” Not abstractly, or somewhere far off, but among you. This of course follows Jesus’ model of life-on-life discipleship.

Think about that for a moment. Jesus is the Lord of the universe who designed the stars and set them in their places in heaven. He sits on a throne in heaven wear angels are constantly before him crying out, “holy, holy, holy!” And when he was on earth, how did he minister? How did he teach his disciples? He was the one who would go out of his way to the ailing and the outcasts. The disciples wanted to act as his body guards, as if Jesus was a typical earthly king. They wanted to shew away people and children. But Jesus said, “let the little children come unto me.” Jesus was approachable. He labored among his followers. In the same way, the pastor should be approachable, open, relatable.

I heard about a story where two pastors were out on the golf course. One pastor started mentioning how things were going in his church and trying to get some feedback from the other pastor. The other pastor who was about to tee off said interrupted him and said, “no shop talk on the golf course.” Shop talk? And this is pivotal to this passage. That pastor may have labored at his church, but that’s all he saw it as, a job, an income, a means to an end. Pastoring is not just a mere job, it’s not just labor, it’s labor among you. As one of my old professors put it, “A good shepherd smells like his sheep.”

2. “Are over you in the Lord”

Pastors have authority and are leaders. Whenever you mention the word “leadership” a lot of different things pop into people’s minds. If you peruse church job postings you may find a lot of churches looking for a leader. A lot of words are put with “leader” dynamic. My personal favorite is vision casting. As if my goal as a pastor is to come up with a successful plan and cast it to the board of trustees, I mean church. Believe it or not God has already cast a vision for his church.

Notice where this leadership and authority is from: the Lord. Acts 20:28 “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.” A pastor is called to be a leader. And that authority of leadership comes from God himself. But what that leadership entail? Does that mean I get up on stage and tell you what to do and leave it at that? No, then I would be laboring “above” you only and not “among you” as our passage commands. There are a lot of pastors who have casted their own vision and garnered a large following. A lot of pastors have changed the prayer, “Thy kingdom come” to, “My kingdom come.” But Paul grounds this leadership in our passage here as “in the Lord.” A biblical pastor does not simply do whatever he feels is best or what he think will bring in the crowds. He must lead in submission to the Lord.

The greatest distinction of this leadership is sacrificial servitude. Christ says Mark 10:42 “And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.” Mark 10:43 “But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant,” I etched on one of my cardboard Bible cases, “I am a slave to Christ, I am a slave to all.” By my logic, if God has called me to be a pastor, then he has called me to be “great among many.” Which means he has called me to be everyone’s slave.

3. “and admonish you”

is the final thing Paul uses to describe the activity of these pastors. To admonish means to correct, specifically in regard to morality and doctrine. The pastor’s role is to correct our ungodly behavior and wrong doctrinal beliefs. We live in a day and age when that is extremely unpopular. But a lot of you lived through a day and age when a pastor would admonish you legalistically. A woman might go to hell for wearing pants, and a man for wearing a hat in the building. I remember as a kid that I would be going to hell if I enjoyed watching a specific list of cartoons that were off limits. Pastors of that age were bullheaded, admonishing legalistically. They said it is the law that saves, there was no grace. Nowadays, most pastors have the head of an ostrich. If anything problematic comes up, they just stick their head in the sand. Now they’ve done away with the law altogether. When it comes to admonishing there has to be balance.

We have some really great examples of pastors in church history. Let me give a quick summary on the life of a man named John Chrysostom.

•100 years after his death, John of Constantinople was given the name “Chrysostom” meaning “the golden-mouthed”

•Above he was a monk; before becoming a monk, he was a lawyer

•He was ordained a presbyter in Antioch, began preaching, and his fame spread throughout the eastern empire quickly.

•In 397, the bishopric in Constantinople became vacant and John was ordered by the emperor to fill the position

•The problem John faced in Constantinople was the rich inhabitants trying to juxtapose the gospel with their own luxuries and comforts

•His first task was to reform the life of the clergy.

•Some priests claimed celibacy (meaning they didn’t marry) but had “spiritual sisters” in their homes.

•Other clergy had become extremely rich and lived lives of luxury

•John ordered the “spiritual sisters” out of the clergy homes and placed church finances under extreme scrutiny.

•The measures he took gained him great respect from some and utter hatred from others.

•The reform could not be limited to the clergy, it also had to extend to the laity

•Eutropius, who made John bishop, was expecting favors in return

•But instead, he just received a clear preaching of the gospel; so, he regretted bringing John to Constantinople

•John held asylum for those who entered his church, even for his enemy, Eutropius. John defended Eutropiusagainst the people, the army, and even the emperor.

•The empress did not like John’s preaching against a luxurious lifestyle. She felt that the congregant’s eyes were judging here whenever John preached.

•So, she granted large sums of money to the church

•When John had to leave the city, he found upon his return, a list of ridiculous charges against him. He was found guilty and the rulers that be decreed to exile him.

•The people were on John’s side; other bishops and clergy from surrounding cities came to support him.

•One word from the eloquent bishop would crumble the entire conspiracy against him. The rulers prepared for war.

•John, however, was a lover of peace and decided to leave the city.

•The streets were boiling with rumors of mutiny; the rulers did not show themselves in public

•The night John left, there was an earthquake, in what was taken as a sign of divine wrath

•Days later in response to these things, the rulers returned John to his Pulpit

I also think about Athanasius who was exiled from his city 5 times and yet still did not stop ministering to his people. He was willing to grab the emperor’s horse by the reigns so that truth could reign. Read excerpt from Peril and Peace pg. 112.

And now pastors today: You mention abortion or critical race theory and they scurry away. Pastors who even after they knew the government shut downs of churches were unjustified scientifically continued to submit to the lesser magistrate in cowardice. Pastors who when faced with abject immorality from members in the church will not exercise church discipline. Pastors who are willing to sacrifice anything, even truth, on the altar of making people feel good about themselves. And I find myself asking aloud, “Where are all the pastors?” But I know they are out there. I know the Lord will preserve and strengthen his church as long as he tarries. He has promised the church will prevail against the gates of hell.

God’s Plan for the Congregation

Let’s reread our verses 1 Thess. 5:12-13 “We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.”

Now let’s look at the congregation’s responsibility: “to respect” and “esteem them very highly in love”

“To respect” - To recognize those who are qualified and do the work of pastor

The first command “to respect” is literally the verb “to know.” And it carries with it the idea to acknowledge the leaders as who they are. This is a big responsibility for congregations that I think is poorly carried out a lot of times. Becoming a leader in the church is simultaneously an exaltation and humiliation. It is an exaltation because it is assuming a position of leadership. It is a humiliation if that leadership is taken appropriately as servitude. The Bible speaks against self-exaltation. Matt. 23:12 “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” It is the congregation’s job to recognize pastors and exalt them to their leadership role.

Imagine for a moment that you are in the early church period after the Apostles have died. There are no seminaries. There is no mass communication devices. There are no job search boards that churches post to. There are no more apostles. Who’s job is it to train new pastors? The congregation. The church would have a healthy culture where young men would aspire to be an elder. 1 Tim. 3:1 “The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.” The church would cultivate the character traits required for being a pastor. The church would observe how the person aspiring to be a pastor in their church managed his household. The church would recognize who had the teaching gifts. The church together with her pastors would elevate the proper candidate to be an equal pastor among a group of pastors within a local church. Some pastors devote full service at the church and the church pays their wages, some pastors would make their living outside the church but still be recognized as a pastor.

Here’s how it worked in my life. I knew from a young age that I wanted to be a pastor. It was announced in front of the church that I wanted to be a pastor and I was paraded around. No one ever took me aside and discipled me. I was pure passion and had no direction. I was chomping at the bit to preach because I knew I was right and everyone else was wrong. My first few sermons were what I would call “copy cat” sermons. I saw one approach to preaching that I though was effective, because it sure brought in the crowds, and copied it to produce sermons. Then I shipped out to Bible school for four years to get a degree. And listen, the degree program was excellent; however, you get out of a program what you put into it. The pastoral ministry professor always scheduled his class for 8AM because he firmly believed pastors should rise early. There were Christian Studies majors who nearly flunked the class because they were late so often. I’m not sure how much they benefited from the experience, but they got the same degree.

I completed my degree program and then the search began. You put out your resume on all the job boards hoping a church will bite. But because you don’t have a seminary degree you get hired in some junior position that is not really recognized as a pastor. What’s the biggest problem with this journey? Nearly all of it is disconnected from the local church. I don’t have a problem with degrees and higher education. I’m working on my Masters right now. The problem is that so many local churches have abdicated their responsibility to “recognize those who labor among you.” Most of my friends that I got a Christian Studies degree with have gotten a job at a church and lost it unjustly. One of my close friends refuses to get a job at a church again for the foreseeable future because of it. Why?

The Bible says, “aspiring to be a pastor is a noble thing.” And commands the church to recognize and exalt the pastors from within their flocks. But we decided to make them run the rat race. The church is supposed to be the light of the world, but several local churches have instead become some of the worst places to work.

Look at Paul’s second command to the church, “to esteem them very highly in love because of their work.”

2. “To esteem them very highly in love because of their work”

According to Barna, in Jan. of 2021 29% of full time protestant pastors considered quitting full-time ministry due to burnout. In March or 2022 that number had increased to 42%. Among the reasons why were listed, “The immense stress of the job,” “I feel lonely and isolated,” and, “I don’t feel respected by the congregants.”

Looking at these statistics we can see that there is a large percentage of churches who do not obey Paul’s command.

Notice the reason why these pastors are to be highly esteemed: “because of their work.” We are commanded to give honor where honor is due. But Paul does not command the congregation to highly esteem these pastors because of their age, social status, or simply because of the fact they get a paycheck from the church. They are to be esteemed in love because of their work.

One of the greatest thing you can do for your pastors is pray for them. Another great thing you can do is write them a note of encouragement, thanking them for a specific work. I know one thing I can be thankful for, and pastor Stephen and pastor Phil may not want me to share this, but I know they did some work recently trying to clean up some bathrooms and unclog some toilets for us.

And this is something I’m certainly thankful for. And when the pastors get their role right and the congregation gets its role right, you know what the result is? “Be at peace among yourselves.” Peace tranquility.

I’ve been at Sandy Valley for a few years. One thing I’ve learned about us as a church is that we love the Lord and seek to submit to his Word. We have the Word central in our bible classes and church services. There are a lot of people out there with a thousand different ways to do church. I pray that we do not seek an idolatrous way to do church, I pray that we don’t not seek my way to do church, I pray that we can find God’s way to do church. In a world full of church free-for-all, may we be anchored to his Word.