Steven Lawson's second session was on 2
Timothy 2:15 Do
your best to present yourself to God as a workman ....
Early on he quoted John
Piper
"at
the heart of every pastor’s work is book-work. Call it reading,
meditation, reflection, cogitation, study, exegesis, or whatever you
will — a large and central part of our work is to wrestle God’s
meaning from a Book, and proclaim it in the power of the Holy
Spirit."
He went on to note five
distinguishing marks of the biblical pastor
1.
An eager or zealous spirit to dig into God's Word
The
word used (Do your best or be diligent) means to use speed. We need to use speed, to be prompt, to
hasten to the Word of God. He used a personal illustration revealing his non-academic stature until his conversion. We
may not need more men in the ministry, he suggested, but fewer who are more eager.
2.
A presented life
He took the example of Whitefield adn quoted Dallimore
There
he is at five in the morning ... on his knees with his English Bible,
his Greek New Testament and Henry’s Commentary
spread
out before him. He reads a portion in the English, gains a fuller
insight into it as he studies words and tenses in the Greek and then
considers Matthew Henry’s explanation of it all. Finally, there
comes the unique practice that he has developed: that of ‘praying
over every line and word’ of both the English and the Greek till
the passage, in its essential message, has veritably become part of
his own soul. See Arnold Dallimore, George
Whitefield,
1:82, 83
3.
Hard work
Self-denial
is required. Luther said
Sure,
it would be hard for me to sit “in the saddle.” But then again I
would like to see the horseman who could sit still for a whole day
and gaze at a book without worrying or dreaming or think about
anything else. Ask ... a preacher ... how much work it is to speak
and preach. ... The pen is very light, that is true . . . but in this
work the best part of the human body (the head), the noblest member
(the tongue), and the highest work (speech) bear the brunt of the
load and work the hardest, while in other kinds of work either the
hand, the foot, the back or other members do the work alone so such a
person can sing happily or make jokes freely which a sermon writer
cannot do. Three fingers do it all . . . but the whole body and soul
have to work at it
For the pastor every week if final exam week. We
don't retire, he suggested, we refire.
4.
A godly fear
Painful
emotion, a consciousness of failure is always there. All we do will be tested by fire. He described how as an American
footballer he would be sat down as the coach went through his moves and graded him. So it will be for the preacher. We must all appear
before the judgement seat of Christ.
5.
Precise exegesis
The
idea is of cutting it straight - handling the Word of God in the
right way. No sloppy work. The word used was used for a workman making a
straight line, a farmer ploughing a straight furrow, a builder
getting the bricks straight, a roadmaker making a road straight and flat
road, a tent maker laying the tanned hide down and using a pattern to
cut around so that the hide perfectly fits the profile, later to be
sewn together.
OT
NT, all the component parts must be grasped so that the Bible speaks with one voice.
All wired together like a perfect tapestry.
He closed with this quotation
Fling
him into his office. Tear the "Office" sign from the door
and nail on the sign, "Study." Take him off the mailing
list. Lock him up with his books and his typewriter and his Bible.
Slam him down on his knees before texts and broken hearts and the
flock of lives of a superficial flock and a holy God.
Force
him to be the one man in our surfeited communities who knows about
God. Throw him into the ring to box with God until he learns how
short his arms are. Engage him to wrestle with God all the night
through. And let him come out only when he's bruised and beaten into
being a blessing.
Shut
his mouth forever spouting remarks, and stop his tongue forever
tripping lightly over every nonessential. Require him to have
something to say before he dares break the silence. Bend his knees in
the lonesome valley.
Burn
his eyes with weary study. Wreck his emotional poise with worry for
God. And make him exchange his pious stance for a humble walk with
God and man. Make him spend and be spent for the glory of God. Rip
out his telephone. Burn up his ecclesiastical success sheets.
Put
water in his gas tank. Give him a Bible and tie him to the pulpit.
And make him preach the Word of the living God!
Test
him. Quiz him. Examine him. Humiliate him for his ignorance of things
divine. Shame him for his good comprehension of finances, batting
averages, and political in-fighting. Laugh at his frustrated effort
to play psychiatrist. Form a choir and raise a chant and haunt him
with it night and day-"Sir, we would see Jesus."
When
at long last he dares assay the pulpit, ask him if he has a word from
God. If he does not, then dismiss him. Tell him you can read the
morning paper and digest the television commentaries, and think
through the day's superficial problems, and manage the community's
weary drives, and bless the sordid baked potatoes and green beans, ad
infinitum, better than he can.
Command
him not to come back until he's read and reread, written and
rewritten, until he can stand up, worn and forlorn, and say, "Thus
saith the Lord."
Break
him across the board of his ill-gotten popularity. Smack him hard
with his own prestige. Corner him with questions about God. Cover him
with demands for celestial wisdom. And give him no escape until he's
back against the wall of the Word.
And
sit down before him and listen to the only word he has left-God's
Word. Let him be totally ignorant of the down-street gossip, but give
him a chapter and order him to walk around it, camp on it, sup with
it, and come at last to speak it backward and forward, until all he
says about it rings with the truth of eternity.
And
when he's burned out by the flaming Word, when he's consumed at last
by the fiery grace blazing through him, and when he's privileged to
translate the truth of God to man, finally transferred from earth to
heaven, then bear him away gently and blow a muted trumpet and lay
him down softly. Place a two-edged sword in his coffin, and raise the
tomb triumphant. For he was a brave soldier of the Word. And ere he
died, he had become a man of God.
