The Mysterious Call of God
Part 2 of 4 – The Misconceptions of the Call
In part one, I wrote about how God spoke to people in times past. There was no inner voice or gut feeling. God spoke in an audible voice, through dreams, through the prophets, the Apostles, and Jesus Christ. God’s communication with men was clear and understandable to the hearers. At times it was physically heard and sometimes witnessed by others, whether it was through man or beast, unlike the so-called call of God, which is based on a single emotion.
Here are some pitfalls of the alleged supernatural call. One thing that I have seen over and over is the pride of pastors who believe that they were personally called by God to work in His service. These men believe that God individually chose them out of millions of other Christian men. God directly spoke to them, the select few, through a feeling. By biblical standards, when God speaks to someone, it is considered divine revelation, which is equivalent to the authority of Scripture.
If I were to tell my pastor that God personally speaks to me in a voice or feeling, I would get a funny look from him. Why? Because he knows that the Lord speaks to us through His Word, the Bible. Any other modes of God speaking would be unbiblical. But, when a young man thinks that God is telling him to go into the ministry, that face of disapproval that I would get now turns into an approving, “That is great that God is showing you that He is calling you!” response.
When it comes to pastors, seminarians, and other church leaders, there is a double standard in the church that creates pride. One is that God only speaks to them, not to the layperson. What if I went up to a church leader and told him that the Lord spoke to me through a gut feeling that he was not qualified to be an elder? Why would their gut feelings be more valid than mine? These men have placed their entire hope in the belief that God has spoken to them. They go to seminary because “God spoke to them.” They go into thousands of dollars in debt because “God spoke to them.” While in seminary, their wives must support the family because “God spoke to them.”
The Confusion of Semantics
Pastors and seminaries like to use semantics when it comes to church leadership. Semantics is the language used, as in advertising or political propaganda, to achieve the desired effect on an audience primarily through the use of words with novel or dual meanings. To explain, a pastor is a teacher, an elder, and an overseer, which are one and the same. Seminaries cannot biblically claim to make elders. Instead, they focus on an elder’s role as it relates to being a pastor. Biblically speaking, if a man is an elder, then he is already a pastor. If God is calling someone to be in a pastoral ministry, God is calling that person to be an elder.
The New Testament uses these four terms referring to the same position in the church. These words continually interchange in the New Testament. The term elder is the most common way to describe the function of the pastor-teacher. Paul says that he was “appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher” (2 Timothy 1:11). To be a preacher and teacher, you must be a pastor-elder. To be a pastor, one needs to live out the elder requirements of Titus 1:5-6, 1Tim. 3:1-7 and 1Peter 5:1-4.
Here is where the play on words come in. When a seminary claims that they can “produce a well-rounded pastor and preacher“, they are claiming to produce elders. In four years, they claim that a twenty-one-old man can be an elder by the time he is twenty-five. If seminarians are not elders before going into seminary, what makes them an elder after graduation? Academics?
If God is personally calling men into His service, is God telling this man he is an elder? Or is He telling this man, after completing seminary, he will be an elder? After all, to be biblically qualified to be a pastor, that man must first be an elder. Reasoning concludes that seminaries, by their play on words, make men elders. That is why the “prodigy pastor” that I wrote about in the SURVIVAL series said that he was training older men to be elders in a three-year program like he had done in seminary.
The Wait
Once these called men complete their Bible education, the church pulpits around the world become open to them, but not for the layman! When the called one is hired, he can immediately take charge of the pulpit. But for the layman who may be new to the church, and would like to teach, the pastor will usually tell him, “Before we let anybody teach, they have to be in our church a good two years” (I also agree with that policy). However, the called are exempt from waiting periods because they were “called by God” to be an elder and went to seminary.
The hypocrisy is that while the layman who desires to teach must wait, the new pastor will not have to. Seminary took care of that. But, once he is a pastor, he will enforce a waiting period before new people are allowed to teach in the church. Now, I agree with a waiting period if it has a purpose. The wait period should be to see if the person who wishes to teach has biblical character. The only way to determine this is to interact with this person on a consistent basis. More on this next.
Character Approval
The command of 1 Tim. 3:10 is to test a man’s character before placing him in a leadership position. With further hypocrisy, this apparently does not apply to the called men either. To them and the church, seminary took care of those biblical requirements also. It makes one wonder when there was no school to buy a high leadership position in the New Testament church; how did they find biblically qualified men to be pastors?!
The Long Wait
What usually happens during a layman’s two-year waiting period until he is allowed to teach? NOTHING! When a person tells their leadership that their spiritual gift is teaching, they often do nothing about it. In fact, they do not know what to do with these people. You would think that pastors would be excited to find men who are willing to seek out and use their spiritual gifts! Indeed, one would think that pastors and church leaders would be on the constant look-out for wise and knowledgeable men since the Lord may be trying to raise future leaders in the church.
Here’s a novel thought! What if pastors actually fulfilled their God-ordained job, as Paul did for Timothy and others, and mentored men to be elders and pastors? During the wait period, church leaders can be doing all kinds of things to prepare men for the ministry. The pastor or church elders can then try to determine how much Bible knowledge the laymen have. For whatever they may lack, they could be given theological reading assignments to increase their knowledge and wisdom. Church leaders can meet with them periodically to keep them on task and see what they have learned and answer any questions.
These laymen could be given ministry opportunities to help the elders and pastor, sit in on their meetings, and take part in other worthy ventures that would shape them into future leaders. Who knows? The Lord may be raising up potential elders, a great Bible teacher, or a future pastor for that church when the current pastor retires. But the church will never know because the church leaders who claim God has called them are not doing their jobs by mentoring men in their congregation.
If God has a call for special men, for what purpose does it serve? They are not fulfilling the scriptural example of mentoring other leaders. Why are they exempt from a testing and waiting period in church? Because they have a seminary degree? A church doesn’t know a new pastor’s character, theology, or habits! For all the church knows, he may be accepting the job to get a steady income and pay off his massive school loans.
The Called Doctrine Questions God’s Omniscience
The called of God doctrine attacks the omniscience of God. Since 75% of called men will leave the ministry in their first two years, why would God call them in the first place? Wouldn’t God run out of people? I’m curious as to how many of the 25% left are only staying because they have gotten comfortable with their positions and are motivated to stay because of their status and authority. Do they feel that they have earned their leadership position, not from the work they have done in the church, but by going to seminary and paying a great deal of money to be a church leader?
Was the call of God different for the 75%ers? Did they make it up? Was it a different type of feeling? If the majority of this group got the call of God wrong, how then can a person trust the others who stayed in ministry to be truly called by God?
The called ones will try to convince the church of their humility and piety by claiming they are equals, but how can a person be equal to those who God speaks to? God does not secretly talk to lay people or lay-elders. Lay-elders usually do not have seminary degrees. Is that why God does not talk to them? Lay-elders are not ordained. When it is time for the called one to move to a “better ministry opportunity,” God will “call” him again to a new position. When a lay-elder moves because of a job or family, God does not tell him it is time to move.
The Called Doctrine Raises Many Questions
Why does God keep on calling the same types of men by the tens of thousands every year, when the Lord knows that their character falls very short of the Scriptural mandates in Titus 1:5-9, I Tim. 3:1-7 and 1 Peter 5:1-4? And, the only reason they stay in the ministry is that it is an easy job with a steady income (for those pastors in the U.S.).
Why would God call men who are afraid to teach the whole counsel of God? About 80,000 people feel the call of God every year and graduate from seminary. Some 60,000 are men. Why would God have to call so many people year after year when three-quarters of them will leave? How come in the Old Testament, God only needed one or two people at a time to fulfill His will? In the New Testament, there was Jesus and his 12 chosen disciples.
One morning I was with some men from a church, and the pastor was there also. One of the men stood up to give the pastor a few compliments. This man went on to say how he appreciated the pastor for speaking out against sin, abortion, and homosexuality. As I was listening, I was thinking to myself; those are easy points to talk about. All I could think about was that I knew that the pastor believed in eldership but was afraid to teach on it because of the church’s doctrine.
Before we became members of this church, my wife and I had told him that we believed in the position and plurality of elders and did not agree with the church’s deacon rule government. He confided that he agreed with us but did not want to cause problems in the church by teaching it. We told him that we understood and would not make an issue out of it.
Topics on sin are easy targets for pastors to preach about in church, but the biblical doctrine of church polity is not, nor is the Bible doctrine concerning Christian women’s roles in church. A pastor from Master’s seminary we knew refused to teach about egalitarianism (Christian feminism) or warn his congregation about it because his best friends in the church were egalitarian. He would not speak about how egalitarianism was a sin because he did not want to lose their friendship and their financial support. Neither pastor was willing to preach the whole counsel of God. Why would God personally call men who dilute the Scriptures and keep their congregation in the dark about such matters?
God will also “call” men who will teach unbiblical doctrines. One morning during Sunday school, the prodigy pastor, who had a master’s degree from Master’s seminary, was trying to teach two-kingdom theology. I remember that the much older folks in the class, who had been Christians for decades, took issue with the erroneous teaching. They became very vocal and told the 27-year-old pastor that they had never heard of such teaching and that it was wrong. The pastor stood his ground and continued to try and teach the rest of his lesson. He could not because the vocal seniors kept on interjecting their comments and their disagreements!
Lack of Biblical Character
Can seminary teach the called ones to be blameless, sexually pure, not self-willed, hospitable, and so on? If so, how? How do you teach the biblical character traits of Titus 1:5-9, I Tim. 3:1-7 and 1 Peter 5:1-4 in a controlled college environment? How do lay elders learn it? It takes years and years for laymen to be known in their home church as being biblically qualified to be an elder. BUT the seminary can “promise” to make a man an elder/pastor in three to four years, providing their financial aid lasts, or it may take longer!
What Biblical Eldership Looks Like
Elders are men who already know the scriptures. If they need to go to school to learn the Bible, then they are not biblical elders. If they need to go to seminary to learn about how to govern a church, they are not elders. If their wives must support the family so that they can get a seminary degree, their home is out of order, and again, they are not elders.
An elder is a man who practices hospitality. When do seminarians practice hospitality? When did the young called seminarian become an elder? Most pastors and elders do not practice hospitality even though it is a biblical requirement of them as a church leader. Why would God call men who blatantly ignore His commands?
Seminaries know that they cannot produce elders biblically. Hence, they use semantics to separate the terms pastor from an elder. They define the work of an elder by the weekly duties of being a pastor. They emphasize the work of an elder under the title pastor. But a man cannot be a pastor without first being an elder. To be an elder takes years of life development, not a short period of time in a controlled educational environment. When these seminarians graduate, will they fulfill the biblical commands of their special call from God? Probably not. So why would God “call” them in the first place if there is such a call?
Read my article, “Value Living” in my SURVIVAL series. There you will learn about what everyone’s primary duty is in the church, including leadership. Below are a few responsibilities of the pastors and elders:
- Elders are to be looking for the next generation of elders and personally mentoring them. Is this being done in your church?
- Elders are to be training the older men to train the younger men in the church. Is this being done in your church?
- Elders are to be training the older women to train the younger women in the church. When has leadership taken the time to even teach and train the women in their churches? It is one of their biblical responsibilities. Is this being done in your church?
- Elders are to pray for their government leaders in corporate worship. Is this being done in your church?
Are the “specially called” men of God fulfilling their calling, or are they waiting for the next opportunity to further their careers? With all the millions of called people who have successfully gone through seminary, the Christian church seems to be stale and disobedient. There are a lot of men who claim they were called by God but have no business being in the ministry!
By Rob Robbins, July 2020, churchfm316.com
Editing and Proofreading by Laura Robbins
COMING SOON!
Part 3 – Holding on to the Call!