Demanding the Best
By R.J. Rushdoony
My editorial on "Coarseness" produced quite a reaction: some angry letters from church members, and some very sad ones from pastors. One thing was clear from some of the letters from laymen: they demand the best from a minister.
Back in the 1930s a fictional letter from a pulpit committee to St. Paul circulated among pastors; the pulpit committee rejected St. Paul as a pastor for a variety of reasons, as I recall it: bad tempered, given to long, involved sentences, short of stature and somewhat beaten up, too controversial, and so on. Things are worse now: Jesus Christ would be rejected at once as a bad-tempered trouble-maker!
One of my favorite (and true) stories concerns Queen Victoria and Gladstone, the prime minister of the moment. Queen Victoria told Gladstone, when faced with a vacancy at St. Paul's, that she hoped a good preacher would be chosen for a change. Gladstone answered, Madam, there are not that many good anythings! How true! We all want the best of others but are rarely ready to give the best of ourselves.
Another problem is the definition of the best. Too often our idea of it is one governed by the world. I must confess my own sin here. When Chalcedon began, I was determined, as far as possible, to help the superior minds in the Christian community. I, through Chalcedon, helped several students through seminary and graduate studies, and it was largely money wasted; I don't even remember the names of some! When I became controversial, they forgot me! Only one has been grateful, and a blessing: David Chilton. In the course of all this, I met one seminary student, was twice invited to dinner at his home, and once preached for him. He was unforgettable because what he had was not intellectual claims or showmanship, but solid Christian character, and a pastor's heart. His name: Byron Snapp, a pastor, I believe, in the P.C.A. How much he agrees with me, I don't know, but that he is in line with the Lord is obvious. I learned the expensive way that the mind does not make the man: faithfulness to Jesus Christ does. It is "holiness without which no man shall see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14).
The church is too full of pew jockeys, demanding but not giving the best. Scripture compares the Church to a body: it is even called the Body of Christ. In that local body, are you a sick liver, an ailing lung, or lazy legs that will not move? Perhaps your complaints about the pulpit have some validity. The clergy, even when they do their best, are not perfectly sanctified, and perhaps some of you would try the patience of a saint! I once knew a couple who sorely tried each other's patience, and they let everyone know it, but they never could understand why the pastor was avoiding them; they felt there was a "need" for a "better man" in the pulpit! Their lives were not a song of love but a long whine of complaints.
As a student, on occasion I went with a professor, a psychiatrist, Dr. Anton Boisen, M.D., when he lectured to various groups and I took charge of his book table. Dr. Boisen had lost an arm in World War I, and it had left him mentally shattered. He recovered and did some remarkable work among the "mentally sick." Although a modernist of sorts, he compiled a hymnal of some of the great hymns of the ages and started a choir among the asylum inmates. His only "problem" with his chapel choir was that the choir members would quickly graduate out of the asylum into health! He had found that a grateful and rejoicing heart is quickly healed, and that Paul's words are strength and healing when he says:
"Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Let your moderation (or, forbearance) be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand (or, is near). Be careful (or, anxious) for nothing, but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God" (Phil. 4:4-6). It is only then, Paul says, that "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding" (v. 7) will sustain us.
How long since you last prayed for your pastor, or for your congregation?
Dr. Boisen's patients gave themselves to the music praising God, and they gained sanity. We must give to get. Our Lord tells us, "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give unto your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again" (Luke 6:38).
Now, before you sit down to write me a foul-mouthed and anonymous letter, take stock of yourself. Your pastor may not be perfect, but neither are you. And God knows what you write and think, and he knows who and what you are better than you do. (By the way, thanks to zip codes on letter cancellations, and to computers, we know who sends anonymous, trashy letters!)
We are all the soul of patience with ourselves. Why not be patient one with another? We are all full, too full, of self-love. How about love for the brethren, and Christ's under-shepherds?
We have enough wars to fight in the world. In our local church community we need to further communion, grace, and love. David's counsel is wise: "Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it" (Psalm 34:14). St. Paul, the warrior, says all the same, "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men" (Romans 12:18). Here we have two great warriors of the faith in agreement. Is it not time that we agreed with them?
Start demanding the best of yourself.
My editorial on "Coarseness" produced quite a reaction: some angry letters from church members, and some very sad ones from pastors. One thing was clear from some of the letters from laymen: they demand the best from a minister.
Back in the 1930s a fictional letter from a pulpit committee to St. Paul circulated among pastors; the pulpit committee rejected St. Paul as a pastor for a variety of reasons, as I recall it: bad tempered, given to long, involved sentences, short of stature and somewhat beaten up, too controversial, and so on. Things are worse now: Jesus Christ would be rejected at once as a bad-tempered trouble-maker!
One of my favorite (and true) stories concerns Queen Victoria and Gladstone, the prime minister of the moment. Queen Victoria told Gladstone, when faced with a vacancy at St. Paul's, that she hoped a good preacher would be chosen for a change. Gladstone answered, Madam, there are not that many good anythings! How true! We all want the best of others but are rarely ready to give the best of ourselves.
Another problem is the definition of the best. Too often our idea of it is one governed by the world. I must confess my own sin here. When Chalcedon began, I was determined, as far as possible, to help the superior minds in the Christian community. I, through Chalcedon, helped several students through seminary and graduate studies, and it was largely money wasted; I don't even remember the names of some! When I became controversial, they forgot me! Only one has been grateful, and a blessing: David Chilton. In the course of all this, I met one seminary student, was twice invited to dinner at his home, and once preached for him. He was unforgettable because what he had was not intellectual claims or showmanship, but solid Christian character, and a pastor's heart. His name: Byron Snapp, a pastor, I believe, in the P.C.A. How much he agrees with me, I don't know, but that he is in line with the Lord is obvious. I learned the expensive way that the mind does not make the man: faithfulness to Jesus Christ does. It is "holiness without which no man shall see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14).
The church is too full of pew jockeys, demanding but not giving the best. Scripture compares the Church to a body: it is even called the Body of Christ. In that local body, are you a sick liver, an ailing lung, or lazy legs that will not move? Perhaps your complaints about the pulpit have some validity. The clergy, even when they do their best, are not perfectly sanctified, and perhaps some of you would try the patience of a saint! I once knew a couple who sorely tried each other's patience, and they let everyone know it, but they never could understand why the pastor was avoiding them; they felt there was a "need" for a "better man" in the pulpit! Their lives were not a song of love but a long whine of complaints.
As a student, on occasion I went with a professor, a psychiatrist, Dr. Anton Boisen, M.D., when he lectured to various groups and I took charge of his book table. Dr. Boisen had lost an arm in World War I, and it had left him mentally shattered. He recovered and did some remarkable work among the "mentally sick." Although a modernist of sorts, he compiled a hymnal of some of the great hymns of the ages and started a choir among the asylum inmates. His only "problem" with his chapel choir was that the choir members would quickly graduate out of the asylum into health! He had found that a grateful and rejoicing heart is quickly healed, and that Paul's words are strength and healing when he says:
"Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Let your moderation (or, forbearance) be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand (or, is near). Be careful (or, anxious) for nothing, but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God" (Phil. 4:4-6). It is only then, Paul says, that "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding" (v. 7) will sustain us.
How long since you last prayed for your pastor, or for your congregation?
Dr. Boisen's patients gave themselves to the music praising God, and they gained sanity. We must give to get. Our Lord tells us, "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give unto your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again" (Luke 6:38).
Now, before you sit down to write me a foul-mouthed and anonymous letter, take stock of yourself. Your pastor may not be perfect, but neither are you. And God knows what you write and think, and he knows who and what you are better than you do. (By the way, thanks to zip codes on letter cancellations, and to computers, we know who sends anonymous, trashy letters!)
We are all the soul of patience with ourselves. Why not be patient one with another? We are all full, too full, of self-love. How about love for the brethren, and Christ's under-shepherds?
We have enough wars to fight in the world. In our local church community we need to further communion, grace, and love. David's counsel is wise: "Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it" (Psalm 34:14). St. Paul, the warrior, says all the same, "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men" (Romans 12:18). Here we have two great warriors of the faith in agreement. Is it not time that we agreed with them?
Start demanding the best of yourself.
