Any time a pastor falls my heart sinks. It is gut wrenching. Especially when it is someone that is loved by many people I admire. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent listening to people write on, write on, or preach on the new-antinomianism debate. While I bet the temptation is strong for some people to say I told you so, (and I think it might be helpful for us to go back and listen to their warnings) whenever things like these happen, it is always a huge reminder about my own sinfulness and my need to re-examine my own qualifications for ministry.
In Scripture, we are taught that when elders fall that they should be rebuked publicly for all to learn from and while I do not want to rebuke Tullian publicly (nor should I), I do take situations like this to examine my own heart and to remind myself that I am capable of incredible evil. This is a reminder that when I went to seminary, I decided to do something that is dangerous. To be preachers of God’s word is the greatest calling on earth but it is also dangerous. So here are ten personal lessons/reminders from this incredibly sad situation.
1) Your theology matters. When MacArthur did the Strange Fire conference, one of the main takeaways for me was that Charismatic theology is dangerous. The prosperity Gospel and the miracle services are caused by charismatic theology. Bad theology causes heresy and sin. When someone with good theology falls, which happens frequently in this fallen world, it is not because of their theology but it is because of their wicked hearts. When you have a system in place that teaches you that you cannot tell a guy who is looking at pornography to stop, or that you cant tell someone who hits his wife that he must stop beating her you are building an environment that is powerless against sin. I have to remember that my theology is critical. When Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:16 to watch his life and doctrine closely, to persevere in them because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers. I must take Paul at his word.
2) Be ready when Tragedy strikes. It is so easy to be blindsided. I am so easily controlled by my emotions and my circumstances but I need to be ready. We all do. Whether it’s that your wife cheats on you, that you lose a job, or that a loved one dies, it is coming, so determine now what you will do in that situation. Do you have a plan? I don’t know how often our Church/school has a fire drill, but it’s annoying and it’s frequent. But I tell you that if there ever is a fire, I know exactly what to do. Situations like these remind me how important it is that we take a James 1 mentality into the world with us. Trials are coming; they are inevitable, so are we prepared? Is our mind ready? How will we respond?
3) Never confess sin by disclosing others’ sin. The worst thing I do when asking my wife for forgiveness is when I say things like, “Please forgive me for reacting in an angry way to what you did.” That’s not repentance, that’s me trying to minimize what I did by telling her that what she did made me do it. When we ask for forgiveness let’s take out all the excuses. Let’s not confess sin by including the sin of others in order to make ourselves and others feel better for what we’ve done. Adam and Eve did that in the garden and I doubt that their excuses softened the curses that God was going to give them. Instead, when we repent and seek forgiveness, let’s call sin evil and let’s own up to it.
4) The celebrity culture in the Church is dangerous. It is very dangerous for the Church to have popular pastors, who live far from the Church, aren’t known by their congregation, and who are hired because of their good looks or their ancestors. We need to fight this mentality of looking at the exterior; rather, we must look at the heart of a man, and look at the biblical qualifications. We cannot make the same mistake that mankind has made time and time again, but rather we must remind ourselves about what God says to Samuel, that he looks at the heart of man.
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