Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Thank them for the opportunity to return and explain confusion

Honor Pastor Williams as Pastor Emeritus and the next pastor here has some might big shoes to fill

And I want you all to know that the pastor search committee has been amazing with me and my family and they have an extremely hard job… actually I was thinking what would it be like if key biblical figures themselves were looked at by a pastor search committee

Pastoral Search Report

Adam: Good man but problems with his wife.

Also one reference told of how his wife and he were former nudists

Noah: Former pastorate of 120 years with no converts.

Prone to unrealistic building projects.

Abraham: Known to tell a few white lies with one being offering to share his own wife with another man.

Joseph: A big thinker, but a braggart, believes in dream-interpreting, and has a prison record.

Moses: A modest and meek man, but poor communicator, even stuttering at times.

Sometimes blows his stack and acts rashly.

Some say he left an earlier church over a murder charge.

David: The most promising leader of all until we discovered the affair he had with his neighbor’s wife.

Solomon: Great preacher but our parsonage would never hold all those wives.

Elijah: Prone to depression-collapses under pressure.

Elisha: Reported to have lived with a single widow while at his former church.

Hosea: A tender and loving pastor but our people could never handle his wife’s occupation.

Deborah: Can't figure out how she is going to be the husband of one wife

Jeremiah: Emotionally unstable, alarmist, negative, always lamenting things, and reported to have taken a long trip to bury his underwear on the bank of foreign river.

Isaiah: On the fringe?

Claims to have seen angels in church.

Has trouble with his language.

Jonah: Refused God’s call into ministry until he was forced to obey by getting swallowed up by a great fish.

He told us the fish later spit him out on the shore near here.

We hung up.

Amos: Too backward and unpolished.

With some seminary training he might have promise, but has a hang-up against wealthy people.

John: Says he is a Baptist, but definitely doesn’t dress like one.

Has slept in the outdoors for months on end, has a weird diet, and provokes denominational leaders.

Peter: Too blue collar.

Has a bad temper—even has been known to curse.

Had a big run-in with Paul in Antioch.

Aggressive, but a loose cannon.

Paul: Powerful CEO type leader and fascinating preacher.

However, short on tact, unforgiving with younger ministers, harsh and has been known to preach all night.

Timothy: Too young.

Jesus: Has had popular times, but once when his church grew to 5000 he managed to offend them all and this church dwindled down to twelve people.

Seldom stays in one place very long.

And, of course, he’s single and has no children.

So as this is a trial sermon and you all will be voting on me and my family next week I thought it would be good to explain what exactly is a pastor

I.

A Pastor Loves His Calling

I.

A Pastor Loves His Calling

Vs. 1 teaches that

Exp

The man truly called to the ministry is marked by both an inward consuming passion and a disciplined outward pursuit.

For him the ministry is not the best option, it is the only option.

There is nothing else he could do with his life that would fulfill him.

Accordingly, he works diligently to prepare himself to be qualified for service.

While some may be called later in life, from that point on nothing else will do.

This is a God-ordained position as well as the office of Deacon

Vs. 1 teaches that

Pastor is ordained to take care of the spiritual needs of the church

Seven Chosen to Serve

6 Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

2 And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.

3 Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.

4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” 5 And what they said pleased the whole gathering

3.

So we know pastors tend to the spiritual needs of the people but what does that look like.

says that pastors do this to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.

Now this does not mean the pastor does not do these works but he is training others to do these tasks along side him.

ARG

Why is it important to train others and have everyone doing the work of the ministry.... Burnout and fatigue… A pastor is not as effective if his tank is always near empty.

How does a church and pastor protect from this…

A pastor must learn to delegate the work.

In Moses’ F-I-L Jethro visits and instructs him to delegate the work.

A Church will only grow to it’s full potential if all hands are at work in the ministry that needs to be done.

APP

Pastors train others and are the example but we ALL should enjoy equipping and discipling one another

II.

A Pastor Models Behavior

1 tim 3.

There are generally four different ways this phrase has been understood:

1. elders must be married

2. elders must not be polygamists

3. elders must have married only once in their life

4. elders must be sexually pure and therefore totally committed to their wife (biblical monogamy)

Must Be Married

, “To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am.”

Paul was not only an apostle, but also a pastor (he served for three years as the pastor at Ephesus, for instance), so he certainly could not be commanding Timothy to examine potential elders on the basis of what he himself was not qualified to undertake.

Likewise, he also says to the Corinthians that as apostles, they had “the right” to “take along” (marry), a believing wife, “even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas [Peter]” ().

Even though he did not personally choose the option of marriage (or that he had in fact been married before but at the time of his statement, was speaking as a widower (as many would contend from ), Paul could have served as an elder and yet have remained single.

EXP

Jesus was single

No Polygamy

Paul could have used a couple of different phrases to speak against polygamy if he had truly wanted to.

For instance, he simply could have said, “An overseer, then, must be above reproach, having no more than one wife,” or “having no more than one wife at a time.”

In the passage, the phrase is used to speak of a widow and whether or not she is to receive some financial assistance from the church.

Even though Paul uses the corresponding phrase, “one-man woman,” or “one-husband wife,” he is essentially speaking of the same kind of qualification and speaks to whether a female widow had demonstrated a faithfulness to her one husband (who is obviously now deceased).

We can conclude that because polyandry (a woman who would be having at least two husbands at the same time) was repugnant both to the Jews and Romans, Paul would have no real need to address this issue in the church.

Therefore, if Paul used the corresponding phrase to refer to these polygamist men in , he would be very confusing to his readers, and certainly should have been far more specific.

Only One Marriage

A third group of interpreters view this “one-woman man” phrase as meaning that a man could marry only once in his lifetime.

This view also will often reflect the belief that once divorced, a man could never remarry, with some even going so far as to say that a widower could not remarry!

As in the first view however, this plainly contradicts other passages of Scripture.

distinctly says, “A wife is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.”

Likewise, says, “The married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning her husband.”