Editorial
Axios!
The Good Pastor Finishes His Course
by S. M. Hutchens
Numerous times in the history of this journal we have made a point of praising good pastors (and this, of course, includes good bishops in the churches that designate their chief elders thus), holding them up to be admired, supported, and emulated. In these days of the office's great tribulation, experienced in withering attacks on the pastor's office from forces within and outside the churches that seek to discourage, weaken, discredit, adulterate, confuse, pollute, madden, and depress good servants of the Lord, we wish once again to give them honor, noting that by the grace and power of God they still exist in large numbers (and are found "where one finds them"), refusing to bow the knee to Baal, embrace the goddess, or offer sacrifices in the Lord's name in the high places of the world.
We would add that it is the responsibility of God's people to recognize the faithful among the formally ordained, to distinguish men of faith and merit from the poseurs, the hirelings, the wolves—the teachers of false doctrine—and to follow and obey the faithful pastors rather than the others.
Still Possible
I have been moved to revisit this subject on the retirement of two pastors who are close to me, both of whom have served in a single place of ministry, preaching the gospel and serving the people for thirty or more years. I will name them here: my brother David, at Walnut Hill Bible Church in Baraboo, Wisconsin, and my friend Nathan Joy James of Calvary Memorial Church in Racine. While they occasion this writing, what I wish principally to note by their lives is that what they have done is possible, and to bear witness that, despite the heavy publicity unworthy pastors receive—so that it seems all the churches are creeping with clerical arthropods of various kinds—there are many men like Nathan and David, who, against much temptation and spiritual opposition, remain faithful and uncompromised.
What makes their longevity particularly important for those of us who do not bear their office is that if there is no greater object of Satan's destructive ire than the good shepherd who for a lifetime leads his people out of their sins and points them to Christ, then how great our hope becomes that God's grace is sufficient for the rest of us.
The Pastoral Epistles make the requirements for the office not impossible but very high—the incumbent must be a man of good reputation both in the church and outside of it, morally upright, intelligent, disciplined, and accomplished, an apt teacher who governs his own children well—and like his Lord, the best of the flock, and not figuratively a "third son." These qualities should not be thought of so much in terms of "zero tolerance" policies, but of talents that must mark his character, so they are not something from which he can fall and maintain office.
Plenty of Good Examples
Churches are sure to find that if they do not retain their pastors in accordance with the apostolic instructions—that if their practices, structures, and policies or just plain foolishness make it difficult to choose and keep men whose lives model that of Christ, and to rid themselves of those whose do not—then the inevitable result will be the extinction of Christianity in the places where that happens, for God is patient, but he will not be mocked. In the meanwhile, we have, if we look for them, plenty of good examples:
There be of them, that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported. And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been. . . . But these were merciful men, whose righteousness hath not been forgotten. With their seed shall continually remain a good inheritance, and their children are within the covenant. Their seed standeth fast, and their children for their sakes. Their seed shall remain for ever, and their glory shall not be blotted out. (Ecclus. 44:8–13)
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
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