The Special Relevance Of Ecclesiastes For Contemporary Culture

By John E. Johnson

[John E. Johnson is Associate Professor of Pastoral Ministries, Western Seminary, Portland, Oregon, and Senior Pastor, Village Baptist Church, Portland, Oregon.]

Few books of the Bible have prompted such a strong reaction as Ecclesiastes, both positive and negative. Some love its candor, its relevance to life’s situations, and its guidance for godly living. Others are offended, believing its message is inappropriate for Christians. For them, Ecclesiastes is nothing more than the musings of a quirky eccentric, the rant of a dissatisfied narcissist. They would have likely agreed with an ancient rabbi, who once quipped, “Solomon wrote Song of Solomon in his youth, Proverbs in his maturity, and Qoheleth in his senility.”[1]

Most would agree Ecclesiastes is an unnerving book, just by its sheer homiletic challenges. As Kreeft comments, “Compared with the neat little nostrums of comfort-mongering minds who cross our t’s and dot our i’s, Ecclesiastes is as great, as deep, and as terrifying as the ocean.”[2] The themes and structure tend to scare off both preacher and congregant. Its message can seem unfocused and its relationship to other Old Testament traditions strained.

Added to the homiletic challenge is the alleged negative tone. Given what Qoheleth wrote about mankind’s limitations to know or control much in life, one might suppose his conclusions about life are as depressing as those of philosophers such as Camus.[3] Others read Qoheleth as “a pathological doubter of everything,” stemming from some drastic emotional experience, perhaps even a psychological disturbance![4] Who needs to hear this from the pulpit?

The complexity, tone, and message of Ecclesiastes have discouraged both preachers and listeners. Martin Luther lamented that the book in his time “has lain in miserable neglect, so that today we have neither the use nor the benefit from it that we should.”[5] John Calvin referred to Ecclesiastes only a few times in his writings, and Ulrich Zwingli paid little attention to it. Charles H. Spurgeon, out of his thousands of sermons, preached only a handful from Ecclesiastes. Many preachers today bypass the preaching of the book.[6]

This article is written to challenge many of these assumptions. The conviction here is that Ecclesiastes is one of the more important books for today. Congregants need to be exposed to its careful exposition.

Why Pastors Must Preach Ecclesiastes

The following are six reasons why pastors should preach this book.

Its Form Suggests It Was Written To Be Preached

Ecclesiastes was composed in an ancient Near Eastern culture, where observations on world order and occasional treatises on life were given.[7] The very title suggests that it was composed as a treatise on life, a lecture to be presented. Luther entitled the book Der Prediger (“The Preacher”), for Qoheleth is the title of a convener, someone who assembles the community. He has convened an assembly (lh'q…, “to assemble, gather”) to preach to a congregation.

It Is The Word Of God

Pastors should preach Ecclesiastes because it is a part of the counsel of God. Part of the reason Ecclesiastes has not often made the preaching calendar goes back to a long-held suspicion that it does not belong in Scripture. Ecclesiastes has been viewed by some as a “canonical misfit,” a book lacking any good news. Some have even accused it of being the Bible’s most heretical book.

Though its place in Scripture was questioned because of its alleged pessimism, it was nonetheless recognized as an integral part of God’s Word as early as the second century BC. Delitzsch commented that if one were to view Ecclesiastes as any less than Scripture, it would be to read the book without intelligence.[8] Qoheleth’s faith in God stands “firm as a rock, against which all the waves dash themselves into foam.”[9] In the patristic period various church fathers held to the legitimacy of the book, including Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, and Augustine.[10] Early on, Origen set the standard for exegesis on Ecclesiastes.

Like every book of Scripture, therefore, it has its place in the pulpit. As with all of God’s Word, it was inspired, revealed, and preserved by God to make the man of God complete, equipped for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Hence one is not at liberty to marginalize or ignore its message. If pastors conform their preaching strategies to the whims of many congregants, they may never preach this book.

It Is Great Literature

Also expositors should preach Ecclesiastes because of the beauty of its form. While no clear literary structure is evident in the book and no single genre governs the book, there is a profound splendor in its literary style that sets Ecclesiastes apart from most books in Scripture. Ecclesiastes includes autobiographical references, theological reflections, philosophical musings, and proverbial instructions.[11] Its rhythmical prose repeatedly soars to the level of poetic form.[12] Themes are unpacked by means of stunning poetry. The words dive beneath the surface of prose into the depths of reality. The author thickened the language, using metaphors of bread and water to talk about risk, flies and oil to talk about sin, and almond blossoms and shattered jars to talk about aging.

George Bernard Shaw once compared Ecclesiastes to Shakespeare. Novelist Thomas Wolfe put it this way: “Of all that I have seen or learned, that book seems to me the noblest, the wisest, and the most powerful expression of man’s life upon this earth, and also the highest flower of poetry, eloquence and truth. . . . I could only say that Ecclesiastes is the greatest single piece of writing I have ever known, and the wisdom expressed in it the most lasting and profound.”[13] Therefore why should preachers hold back from presenting such artistic beauty?

It Is Necessary For Pastoral Work

Ecclesiastes is also a vital part of pastoral work. Peterson refers to Ecclesiastes as foundational, as one of the five necessary “stones” for doing ministry. He writes, “Pastoral work gathers expertise not by acquiring new knowledge but by assimilating old wisdom, not by reading the latest books but by digesting the oldest ones.”[14] Ecclesiastes is part of that older wisdom.

Pastoral work begins with the preacher. And preachers, as much as anyone, need the wisdom of Qoheleth. In exegeting the book expositors are cleansed, purged, and moved to repentance. As Peterson puts it, “The pastor reads Ecclesiastes to get scrubbed clean from illusion and sentiment.”[15] Only then can the pastor declare its message, challenge naïve optimism, train people in the skills of living, and demonstrate the vanity of anything that is severed from God.

It Speaks To The Times

Also Ecclesiastes addresses the many bewildering issues of today. Ecclesiastes was composed when a modern/postmodern shift of its own was taking place. The writer clearly had modernist instincts, for he was a man obsessed with achievement, wealth, and status. If it was written by Solomon, it was authored in a golden age of advancement, a world caught up with itself and its attainments and burdened by its successes and excesses. But as with many modernists, those achievements left the writer skeptical, shriveled in his soul, confronted by the painful emptiness of it all, and humbled by the fact that success is not under one’s control. Rather than a book full of answers, Ecclesiastes is a work full of questions.

In each chapter the author exposed the “fractures in the modern edifice,” unmasking the claims of progress, the assumptions that humans can manage the vapor of time, the complexities of society, and the laws of nature. Like other deconstructionists, the writer swung a huge ax at life and its structures, exposing the shortcomings of modernity.[16] Solomon reinforces what people today need to keep learning—that they can make state-of-the-art vehicles run by computer chips, but they still end up with sticking accelerators that make them lethal. They can market powerful wonder drugs that bring relief to painful symptoms, but with each commercial, there is an extended warning of possible side effects—liver damage, extreme vomiting, and sudden death.

Ecclesiastes is the clearest biblical statement that people are not gods who control life’s events. As chapter 1 painfully declares, the world goes its own way and is carried by its own laws. In His time, in His way, God rules over all.

It Is A Realistic Appraisal Of Life

Ecclesiastes states what people already know—that life is a profound mystery. The book mentions many things that people neither understand nor can control.[17] It exposes what is sometimes hidden; it rips away some romantic notions. Some like to believe the myth that the grass is greener on the other side, but Ecclesiastes shows patches of brown on both sides.

Qoheleth was a realist. He stated, for example, that while adultery appears alluring, it is a forbidden fruit that also has its brown spots. He noted that for evil to do its worst, it must look its best, that if a person scratches certain itches, he will only itch more; and that the more self-absorbed a person becomes, the less there is to find absorbing (e.g., 7:23-29). This is the nature of wisdom.[18]

Qoheleth takes his readers to the edge, putting into words some of the deeper bewilderments humans face. To put it another way, if wisdom is base camp, Qoheleth is an explorer willing to go beyond to the dangerous summit.[19] Qoheleth noted that life is a strange mixture of unexpected delights and bitter disappointments, of profound discoveries and overwhelming disillusionments (e.g., 6:1-7). People’s days are a combination of serenity and anxiety, life and death, joy and grief. Human achievement is vaporous. One’s ability to take control of life and explain it is severely limited. As Leithart puts it, “This windy little world will not stay put in the little labeled file boxes we make for it.”[20]

Ecclesiastes shows the hard, paradoxical reality of life. It asks unnerving questions like, “What does the laborer gain from his toil?” (3:9, NIV). If people are honest, sometimes they ask the same questions.

Solomon pushes his readers to painful realities, reminding them they are mortal. The words of the wise are likened to painful goads, embedded nails (12:11). They comfort, and yet they can rip. They encourage people to keep moving along on the journey toward wisdom.[21] Ruthlessly the convener moves from one theme to the next, from one reality to the next. He is deconstructing so that he can construct. He is affirming uncertainty in hopes of enticing readers to address their doubts to God. He is forcing people to face life head-on so that the gospel will have credibility. Melville was right when he called Ecclesiastes “the truest of all books.”[22]

Clues To Preaching Ecclesiastes

Commit To Work Hard

Ecclesiastes is a demanding book to preach. One must do the necessary exegesis, becoming immersed in the flow of the book and pressing to its end. Each part can be understood only in the context of the whole, for it is an intellectual search for meaning, and most of the search is aiming toward the conclusion where the true meaning is discovered.[23] The listener is also obligated to the hard work of careful listening and perseverance. Like a journey on a ship through difficult waters, one must stay on board until reaching port.

Read In The Context Of Wisdom Literature

Preaching wisdom literature effectively takes into consideration the message of all the wisdom books. Proverbs, Job, and Song of Songs make their own signature contributions, but they also integrate into a whole message.[24] Ecclesiastes is not presenting an alternative worldview. Instead it is affirming the need to possess wisdom and to fear the Lord. Proverbs presents a more rational, ordered approach to life; Job and Ecclesiastes present the exception.[25] Ecclesiastes broadens out the observations of Proverbs, observations that were not meant to be hard promises.

Welcome Rather Than Avoid The Conflicts And Apparent Contradictions

Expositors must maintain a certain discipline when preaching Ecclesiastes. They must avoid making the text say what they want it to say rather than letting it speak for itself. Ecclesiastes declares in one part of the book that the dead are more fortunate than the living (4:2). Later the statement is made that a living dog is better off than a dead lion (9:4). Which is it? Qoheleth affirmed the value of wisdom over folly (2:12-14), but then he cautioned against being too wise (v. 15). But Qoheleth was not contradicting himself so much as he was observing inconsistencies in the world. His intent was not to resolve; rather he described and bemoaned, searching for wisdom to navigate through life’s inconsistencies.

Another way to make this third point is to look for trouble. Lowry actually encourages preachers to find the weird, the strange, the sentence that does not flow easily, the “something that just feels wrong.”[26] That is not difficult to do in Ecclesiastes. The task is to explore the conflicts and complications, to mine out the things that turn sideways, to explore the mystery and doubt for all they are worth. This is when Ecclesiastes becomes both unnerving and thrilling. Preachers, like artists, must have a thirst for chaos and conflict, for living life on the edge of the abyss.[27]

Preachers should see Ecclesiastes as a great homiletic challenge—not so much to fix—but to expound and discover where Qoheleth is taking its readers. When preaching the book, expositors should guard against trying to tame the radical features of the book. Their task is not to resolve the tensions and align the Scriptures with their expectations, needs, and understandings. Rather, they should come to Ecclesiastes intent on aligning with and submitting to the text. As Murphy underscores, “The cutting edge of the book has to be retained.”[28]

Find The Exhortation

A key part of the work in preaching is summoning the listeners to action. Ecclesiastes, like all of Scripture, is written to persuade. So expositors do well to look for the imperative. Even in the self-reflections and the proverbial sayings, Solomon was being directive. Preachers therefore must discern where the text is going, to note its sequence, and the challenge being given to the heart.[29] Ecclesiastes was written not to inform but to transform. Behind the realities of time, for example, is the exhortation to seize the moment (chap. 3). With the proverbial fly in the ointment is a call to watch for the little things that can trip up life (chap. 10).

Move From Theme To Theme

Preaching the themes in Ecclesiastes is a good way to expound the book. Commentaries do not agree on the structure. Murphy describes Qoheleth’s thought as “torturous,”[30] and Crenshaw writes, “In my judgment no one has succeeded in delineating the plan of the book, for it certainly has characteristics inherent to a collection of sentences.”[31] Brown adds, “Seeking structure in Qoheleth’s turbid discourse is, frankly, an exercise in frustration.”[32] Garrett concludes that Ecclesiastes has no hierarchical flow but is rather a kind of wandering among several topics doubling back on itself.[33]

Yet this book is not slapped together. Underneath it all is a design and a flow, as well as an intended destination. Each theme should be read in the broader context and preached accordingly.

The following are some of the significant, urgent themes and their summaries that need to be addressed today.

Pleasure (2:1-11). Few passages are as relevant to the present age as Ecclesiastes 2. Many people are on the hedonic treadmill, seeking to find ultimate meaning in wealth and pleasure. If anyone plumbed the depths looking for satisfaction at every level, it was Solomon. As chapter 2 makes clear, he approached pleasure like a scientist, researching to find out if happiness and wealth live up to their promises. His access to assets and power enabled him not only to be the researcher but also the researched. He had an impressive portfolio; in all his possessions he was not surpassed by any other king (2:9).

Solomon built amazing projects. His palace alone took thirteen years to build. He experimented with drugs and acquired servants to take care of his paradise. But as Solomon ran the data and amassed his findings, he discovered the all-too-painful truth that the more a person has the more he wants. Running on this treadmill hollowed out his soul and created disabling attachments.

His conclusion is simple: All one’s efforts and accumulations are futile, like chasing after the wind (2:11). Satisfaction this side of eternity has all the permanence of sandcastles on a beach. Or more like cloud castles on a windy day.[34] Accumulating wealth is futile, absurd, and without profit.

Time (3:1-15). Like most people in today’s Western culture, impressed with time management and measureables, Qoheleth may have assumed time was his to control. Yet looking back, he realized it was not so. God has ordained all things. Each has its rightful time and place. The most momentous moments are completely beyond man’s control. They are His to set. Time is a series of give and take: birth and death, planting and plucking. For every positive, there is a negative: a time to dance, a time to weep; a time to search for a missing hiker, a time to give up the search. For every gain there is a loss. People celebrate a baby’s birth, and mourn the passing of a life. Yet each has a purpose, specifically designed by God.

Solomon was profoundly aware that these moments move in a timely manner. Time waits for no one, consuming choices left unmade. Days are like a handbreadth. Hence life can feel as substantial as a wisp of steam—an enigmatic blur. A worker teaches his classes, runs his route, sees his patients, makes his quotas, preaches his sermons, raises his kids, and prepares for retirement. And before he knows, it all dissolves as quickly as the mist in the morning sun.

What complicates all this is that amidst the transience, there is something of the transcendent, something of eternity in humankind, placed there by God (3:11). People are confined by transience, yet something has been planted that tells them they are more than merely time bound. Something leaves humans restless. They are compelled to seize what moments they have and to let something of the eternal define them.

Relationships (4:7-12). The recurrence of lb,h, (4:7) is a marker to describe another unsettling feature to investigate. Solomon saw what people today often see, the emptiness that comes when a person is obsessed with work at the expense of relationships. These verses could be autobiographical, for Solomon’s life is portrayed as all about career and the pursuit of success. A person gives himself to the chase, and he wakes up one day with the realization that he is a very lonely person.

When it comes to bottom lines and profits, relationships may get someone up in the middle of the night or drain his bank account. But in the end two are far better than one. To have a son who can aid an elderly person when the son is grown is better than living alone. To know someone is there to lift a person when he falls is a great comfort.

Politics (4:13-16). Ecclesiastes gets past the comforting bromides and gets right to the issues of life. In this passage Solomon unmasks the pretensions and tells what people need to hear. Much of the attention and money to sustain the political election machine is a massively doomed effort at shepherding the wind. People have the mindless tendency to prop others up, only to tear them down. Today’s heroes become tomorrow’s discards. Time and familiarity have a way of taking their toll. Today’s audacious hope is tomorrow’s call for change.

The message for politicians and other leaders is to not get caught up in self-importance. People quickly tire. Position and age have a way of changing kings into old fools. Successors come, loved by the masses, but affections fade all too soon. Solomon was again pointing out the ephemeral character of life, the fleetingness of popular acclaim.

Mortality (7:2-4). This passage confronts one of life’s most painful realities. At first the words seem odd: “Better to go to a house of mourning” (7:2). Really? Who wants to hang out in a funeral home? Mourning in this ancient culture was a very elaborate affair—grief, wailing, tearing of clothes, and sitting on ashes. It seems odd to prefer that over a place of celebration.

However, being in the place of grief can be beneficial. Life is more fully appreciated and evaluated with the grave in mind. Here people are more likely to come to grips with their own fragility and finitude. In a funeral home people can more easily discern what is substantive compared with what is superficial. People are reminded that life is not a dress rehearsal.

Mindful of mortality, self-importance is replaced with God-importance. Wisdom overtakes folly, and people ask, “What will be said at my memorial service? Will they need to embellish my accomplishments, spin the truth? Will words have to be overstated to cover my thinness?” The passage forces reflection like the bumper sticker “Live so the pastor won’t have to lie at your funeral.”

Wisdom (9:13-18). Because Ecclesiastes is part of the sapiential collection in Scripture, readers expect Solomon to speak about wisdom. To him wisdom is the pinnacle, the apex, the end point of the journey. And he makes this point with a story.

In this story he makes the case that wisdom has its own power. It is a force that can take on the world. However, he includes the painful reality that it takes only a bit of folly to cancel out wisdom (9:18). One inappropriate touch, one poor choice, or one badly chosen word can ruin years of faithful ministry. One fly can ruin the ointment (10:1). All the wisdom of the world can be spoiled by just a little bit of impatience, irritability, cynicism, procrastination, and moodiness.

Wisdom also has limitations. While it sheds needed light, enables people to walk as if in well-lit rooms, gives skills for navigating through life, helps people avoid banging their shins and scraping their elbows, wisdom can take people only so far. It cannot explain everything; it is not a divine warranty against pain. Wisdom can give success, but it cannot save from death.

Risk (11:1-6). Ecclesiastes does more than inform, it inspires. This passage compels people to go after life, live large on the stage on which God places them. “Cast your bread on the surface of the waters” (v. 1). Here is an ancient saying from a background no longer known today. But the idea is that people should not wait for life to come to them.

If someone insists on seeing everything first, he will end up in paralysis (v. 4). Storms happen, calamities strike, crops fail, pirates steal, economies tank, and health goes. Life is a combination of smooth sailing and tough sledding. Some might lose it all. But if one always plays it safe, stays stuck in risk lock, becomes a professional cloud watcher waiting for the perfect moment, he will have little to show for life. So he should not get sidetracked. He should diversify his investments of energy and resources, recognizing that all is in God’s sovereign control.

Aging (12:1-8). Here Ecclesiastes warns of the worst sort of procrastination: “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come” (12:1). People ought not squander the moments and put off God. Rather they should remember God while youthful idealism is strong. People ought to live for Him while the heart is robust, the mind is clear, and the body can run at full tilt.

A time will come when one can no longer remember so well. With the passing of years, the calcium will flow from bones into tissues, leaving the bones thin and everything else hard. A time will come when the wear and tear of age will set in, and life will be one physical setback after another. Mortality will stalk everyone’s life. To all who say, “When I finish my goals, I want to get serious for God,” this is Solomon’s saying—“Only fools put off God!”

God (12:13-14). Every Bible book is ultimately about God. He is the center of every book, and He is the focal point of this one. Qoheleth explored life carefully, and now at the end of this long journey he tied the knot that secures all the threads.

When all has been said, here is the conclusion, the end of the matter, and the final resolution of life’s complications: “Fear God and keep His commandments” (12:13). This is what really matters. This is the totality of life, the summation of man: to hold God with reverence and awe. This is the essence of wisdom (Ps. 111:10; Prov. 9:10). The fear of God is what makes a person truly human.

There is a time after the time under the sun, when everyone will have to give an account of what or whom he has revered. God will bring every act into judgment. On this day everything that has been upside down will be right side up. Meaninglessness will be replaced with meaning, mercy will purge out oppression, and the righteous will flourish. The curse will be behind.

So everyone should live as if the future matters, as if choices they make have great implications.

Move To The Gospel

Ecclesiastes brings readers face to face with their fallen condition. Each chapter underscores the hopelessness that results from the curse, the impossibility of finding ultimate satisfaction and meaning in a broken world. “Qoheleth, from amid his heaps of ruins, shows how necessary it is that the heavens should now soon open above the earth.”[35] There are joys to be found and experienced in this life (2:24), but ultimately God writes this book to push readers to Jesus. He alone can redeem from life’s futility (Rom. 1:18-23).[36]

Conclusion

Like the rest of wisdom literature, Ecclesiastes presses readers to make sure their feet have landed in the real world. The witness of Christians will be more compelling if people see that they grapple fairly with the mysteries of life, the seeming absurdities, as well as life’s fleeting nature. Preaching Ecclesiastes may prompt some severe reactions, but this might affirm that one is getting close to the real pains, the angst that troubles people most. Ecclesiastes has huge homiletic challenges, but when preached thoughtfully and proclaimed powerfully, it can bear some of the greatest homiletic fruit.

Notes

1. James Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987), 54.
2. Peter Kreeft, Three Philosophies of Life (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989), 16.
3. Edward Curtis and John Brugaletta, Discovering the Way of Wisdom (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2004), 204.
4. Craig Bartholomew, Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009), 42.
5. Martin Luther, quoted in James Limburg, Encountering Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 1.
6. Bartholomew, Ecclesiastes, 36.
7. See James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950).
8. C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952), 183.
9. Ibid.
10. J. Robert Wright, ed., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2005), xxiii.
11. William Brown, Ecclesiastes (Louisville: John Knox, 1958), 17.
12. H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Ecclesiastes (Columbus, OH: Wartburg, 1952), 22.
13. Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again (New York: Harper & Row, 1934), chap. 47.
14. Eugene Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 10.
15. Ibid., 155.
16. Peter Leithart makes a helpful contribution on this subject (Solomon among the Postmoderns [Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2008]).
17. Curtis, Discovering the Way of Wisdom, 196.
18. See Cornelius Plantinga, in his chapter “Wisdom and Folly,” in Not the Way It Is Supposed to Be (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 113-28.
19. Derek Kidner, A Time to Mourn and a Time to Dance (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1976), 13.
20. Leithart, Solomon among the Postmoderns, 165.
21. Brown, Ecclesiastes, 18.
22. Herman Melville, Moby Dick (New York: Rinehart, 1948), 421.
23. Terry Carter, J. Scott Duvall, and J. Daniel Hays, Preaching God’s Word (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 277.
24. See Barthomew, Ecclesiastes, 85-92, for a helpful comparison.
25. Carter, Duvall, and Hays, Preaching God’s Word, 274.
26. Eugene Lowry, The Sermon (Abingdon: Nashville, 1997), 94.
27. Ibid., 64.
28. Roland Murphy, The Tree of Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 53.
29. Lowry, The Sermon, 55.
30. Roland Murphy, Ecclesiastes (Dallas: Word, 1992), lviii.
31. Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes, 47.
32. Brown, Ecclesiastes, 15.
33. Duane Garrett, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs (Nashville: Broadman, 1993), 270.
34. Leithart, Solomon among the Postmoderns, 68.
35. Delitzsch, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, 184.
36. For discussion on what Ecclesiastes teaches about God and man see Roy B. Zuck, “God and Man in Ecclesiastes,” Bibliotheca Sacra 148 (January–March 1991): 46-56. And for additional suggestions on how to proclaim the book of Ecclesiastes see Greg W. Parsons, “Guidelines for Understanding and Proclaiming the Book of Ecclesiastes, Part 1,” Bibliotheca Sacra 160 (April–June 2003): 159-73; and Part 2: 160 (July–September 2003): 283-304.

The Prophetic Office As Paradigm For Pastoral Ministry

By John E. Johnson

[John E. Johnson is Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon. He previously pastored an international church near The Hague in The Netherlands.]

In The Netherlands, most villages are graced with churches, with one dominating the center of town. Towering over neighboring buildings, many of their spires suggest a religious presence. But the sad reality is that many have become empty shells. They are cavernous monuments of another era, when the church was the center of life and God’s Word was declared from its pulpits. Today, many of these hollowed-out edifices have been converted into everything from carpet warehouses to discotheques. One can only lament the lost voice, one that called people back to God.

That voice is absent in most of Western Europe. To a lesser extent, this is also true in the United States. It is rare to find a platform where a passionate voice declares, “Thus saith the Lord.” There are plenty of pulpits, but few preachers are up to filling them. As a result, our vacuous faith is robbing the postmodern world of what it needs most, a word from God.[1]

I. The Need For Prophetic Ministry

My argument in this article is that pastors must once again engage in a prophetic role. The times require that they stand and speak with divine authority, with a passion and a conviction that God has revealed his will to them. This is not to suggest that the Canon is still open, nor that every word preached from the pulpit should be viewed as divinely inspired. But it is to say that God remains committed to revealing himself through faithful preaching. Few congregations are leaving Sunday morning services with the impression that divine revelation has taken place.

Much of today’s preaching seems calibrated to attract the hearers, satisfy the attendees, and avoid offence. It is delivered with the assumption that people want comfort rather than confrontation. This is, in part, a result of the direction pastoral theology has taken in recent years. It is also a consequence of ministry reoriented towards the unchurched, with a view to satisfying the consumer. In the process, sentiment is growing that preaching has been hijacked by another language. We’re in danger of losing our mother tongue. Psychology has commandeered theology; psychobabble has replaced repentance; motivational talks have shoved aside exegesis; and theology proper has been overtaken by therapy.[2] It is time to get back to our prophetic mission, lest we wind up in the junkyard of irrelevancy.

The concern is expressed on numerous fronts. Homiletician Calvin Miller mourns over the loss of prophetic ministry. Assessing contemporary preachers, he writes, “There is often little of Jeremiah in their message. The thorny personal requirements of Amos or John the Baptist have been traded for a velvet togetherness.”[3] The “soup” is so bland that no one is offended by the taste. Bill Hull, author and pastor, agrees. A prophet-less ministry has rendered the church tepid, imprisoned by structures and red tape, and derelict in the making of disciples. Inspired by the prophet Amos, he writes,

We think ourselves safe from God’s discipline because we are theologically orthodox and we are the church, not Israel. We reason that this is God’s age of grace. He doesn’t hammer His people anymore. However, I firmly believe the Lion has roared against the evangelical church.[4]

The need, then, is for pastors to take the mantle of Elijah, so to speak, and fulfill their ministry.

II. The Rationale For Prophetic Ministry

There may be a need for prophetic ministry, but is this a fair expectation of contemporary pastors? Is this a distinctive of another dispensation, or should we still insist that pastors be prophetic? After all, NT pastors are not synonymous with OT prophets. Eph 4:11, as one example, distinguishes prophets from pastors, suggesting that they each have their functions. OT prophets, in the main, had a singular task—to be mouthpieces for God. Pastors, by the very nature of the term, have a much broader ministry. Many of the OT and NT prophets carried out a predictive role, one that would seem to have ceased with the completion of the Canon. Furthermore, the word of God came with an immediacy and directness that, for the most part, does not come to pastors today. Prophets who received infallible and canonical prophecies provided a foundation for the church (Eph. 2:20), one that should not be tampered with, added to, or subtracted from.[5] Those of another era manifested miraculous, if not remarkable, demonstrations of power.

Nonetheless, there are good reasons for calling pastors to be prophetic. The prophetic informs the pastoral, and here is why.

A. The Nature of God

Behind any prophetic ministry is a passionate God, jealous for his name. It is God’s commitment to justice, his hatred of abuse, his grief over sin, and his passion for his people that has inspired a prophetic word. Divine fervor and prophetic ministry are woven together, from Genesis to Revelation, from Abraham (Gen 20:7) to John (Rev 1:1).[6] And God has not changed (Jas 1:17). He still hates the sins of his people and uses all kinds of inward and outward griefs to wean their hearts from disobedience.[7] He is still speaking to his world. Where one hears his voice, it is evident he remains committed to repentance and renewal. Through the instrument of a pastor, the blend of the pastoral and the prophetic becomes a powerful tool in the hand of God.

B. The Nature of a Pastor

In a previous article, I suggested that the roots of pastoral identity could be traced back to each of the OT offices.[8] These spiritual offices—prophet, priest, sage, and king—were established by God to lead his people. Each served a defined role, and each expressed a particular dimension of ministry. They also coalesced in the person of Christ. It follows, then, that pastors who seek to emulate Christ will have a prophetic component to their ministry. Christ was, after all, the prophet par excellence, the prophet predicted by Moses (Luke 2:47; Acts 3:22–24).[9] His messages were marked by “Thus saith the Lord.” Completing his ministry on earth, he left this mandate for those who lead the church: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21). Being prophetic is not optional, but an important feature of the pastor’s role, identity, and Christlikeness.[10]

C. The Nature of the Church

Pentecost inaugurated a new age, a new relationship with God, a new involvement with the Holy Spirit. What had been the experience of a few became the universal experience of the church. Joel’s words were fulfilled, words which declared that the universal gift of the Spirit also became a universal ministry of prophecy (Acts 2:17).[11] All who live under the new covenant are prophets, in the broadest sense of the term. Peter’s words turned upside down the assumption that prophecy had passed with the last of the writing prophets. This is not to suggest that NT prophets (e.g., Agabus, Silas), or those in the church with the gift of prophecy, or pastors who preach prophetically have an authority equal to that of an Isaiah. It is simply to underscore that God making himself known remains a viable expectation in ministry. The church is his prophetic community, commissioned to continue the task of exposing oppression, revealing truth, mocking the idols, and calling for decision.

D. The Nature of the Pastoral Task

If Pentecost initiated a prophetic age, then it would logically follow that a prophetic task is particularly incumbent upon pastors.[12] Pastors stand within the community, appointed to an office which has, as its chief duty, the proclamation of God’s Word. Theirs is a calling, an ordaining to the task of rightly dividing the Word. It is their mission to preach in season and out (2 Tim 2:15; 4:2). God has commanded that those gifted in speaking should speak the very words of God (1 Pet 4:11).

If pastoral preaching, then, is true to Scripture it will be the means by which God brings his Word to those who hear.[13] It will be the fulfilling of their prophetic task. As J. I. Packer notes, “Prophecy has been and remains a reality whenever and wherever Bible truth is genuinely preached.”[14] It may be a fresh understanding of what has formerly been revealed, as opposed to new revelation, but this does not diminish its authority. It may need to be examined in the same manner Paul commanded us to examine prophetic utterances (1 Thess 5:20–21), but, passing the test, it needs to be received as God’s will for our lives.

Contemporary pastors may not view themselves as prophets, but many of their predecessors did. There was a time pastors saw themselves as heirs of the Hebrew prophetic tradition. Like OT prophets, they understood their mission as proclamation of the Word of God. It was not their word; it was God’s Word.[15] Anything less would have been a disastrous loss for the church, preaching devoid of authority.[16] In the early 1900s, one pastor wrote, “The only assurance of the reality of mission of God in ministry, the one secret and source of all spiritual vitality, power, and efficacy in ministry is ‘prophetic succession.’”[17]

Today’s pastors need to reclaim the same conviction—that God has a particular word for a particular time and a particular place.[18] It may not be heard in the wind, or found in the midst of a heavenly vision, but it will emerge within the interplay of skillful exegesis, spiritual contemplation, and reflection on culture. If we are not convinced that it will, then much of what we do in the study will be an exercise in mental gymnastics, a mere piecing together of grammar, history, and theological study. But if we are persuaded that God is longing to reveal his will to those who wait for him, then the message preached will once again ring with the authority of an Isaiah, the heartbeat of a Jeremiah, and the passion of an Amos. Rather than the mere communication of ideas, it will have an impact like a light in a dark room, making clear the road ahead.[19]

III. The Nature Of Prophetic Ministry

If one is convinced that a pastor should be prophetic, that the OT office serves as a paradigm for his identity, what does it look like? What is a prophetic role? Is a pastor’s trademark to be one long jeremiad? Does it mean one becomes a humorless denouncer, condoling the downtrodden, and condemning the oppressors (preferably in a very loud voice)? Does it suggest that God wants us to be a group of “fusty finger waggers” akin to those in the past who were “weird and confusing and all sounding alike”?[20] In other words, is this a summons to become irrelevant, to alienate those we are attempting to reach? After all, tastes, composition, and economic conditions are shifting like plates along the San Andreas fault, and those insensitive to the present needs will, as one popular pastor puts it, fall through the cracks.[21] Can we be prophetic and still reach our world?

Answers can best be found by examining the prophetic office. Here, three characteristics emerge. If pastors are faithful to its paradigm, they may find themselves reviving moments in the past, when people (churched and unchurched) arrived early for the best seats, convinced they might hear from God. Such ministry might actually be a breath of fresh air, blowing out a rather stale culture. Pastors will fill the vacuum, be what the church yearns for, and bring back an age that is, at present, perilously close to the edge of divine judgment.

A. Prophetic Preparation

By preparation, we mean this—God’s prophets wait for a word from God. This is part of the first characteristic of a prophet. OT prophets were not central to the narrative. God’s Word was the story. They came with a word from him. Inherent in the term nabi, the Hebrew word for prophet, is a “bubbling or boiling forth.”[22] God authorized his messengers to pour forth the word. They were, as Delitzsch puts it, the “proclaimers, publishers, speakers, namely, of God and His secrets.”[23] Hence, “Thus saith the Lord” was their defining intro-duction (Jer 2:2; Ezek 2:4; Amos 1:3). They were charged with a burden, a word from the Lord that they had no choice but to deliver. At times, the message was eschatological in nature. But more often, prophets were preachers rather than predictors, forth-tellers rather than foretellers.

Consequently, they stood in God’s council and listened for God’s voice (Jer 23:22). They were given access to privileged information, called to submit to God, consume his word, and speak it (Ezek 3:1). Nearly every prophetic book introduces itself as the word, the vision, or the oracle given to the prophet. The prophets’ qualifications had nothing to do with pedigrees, but everything to do with listening hearts (Amos 1:1). As Elizabeth Achtemeier observes,

According to Isaiah 6, Isaiah 40, and especially Jeremiah 23:18, the true prophet has stood in the heavenly council of the Lord to perceive and to hear his word, and is then sent forth to proclaim the word that God will act among his people.[24]

Apart from this, they had nothing to say and little to contribute to the setting. Words based in their imaginations would only lead the people into futility (Jer 23:16).

It should be no different today. The minister who engages in a prophetic ministry must be as unoriginal as the prophets of old. What is preached should not derive from one’s own inventive musings, but be inspired by God’s revelation. A preacher’s initial task, then, is to wait upon God. In the midst of his interaction with the written revelation, there must be the expectation that God’s purpose will be communicated. While in the study he should be like the prophet Habakkuk, who stationed himself on the rampart to keep watch and see what God would speak (Hab 2:1). The church needs pastors who enter with such expectations, prophetic hearts like Samuel, who will say, “Speak, for your servant is listening” (1 Sam 3:10). As Charles Jefferson puts it, “Like a Moses, he must go up to the mountain and talk with God face to face, coming down and giving to his brethren his latest revelation.”[25] Unless this happens, he is not ready to enter the pulpit. With similar passion, MacArthur gives this exhortation to those who would hear their pastor: “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.’”[26]

How does this happen? What does the OT prophet teach us? First of all, a contemporary prophet makes himself available. He determines to be still. In the solitude, he determines to tap into the source. He enters into covenant, a holy commitment to be God’s mouthpiece, a mediator sent from God to speak in the name of God. He exposes himself to spiritual realities others might not see. This is the fruit of searching deeply into the Scriptures and entering the quiet where deep calls to deep (Ps 42:7). And then, like Isaiah, he declares, “Send me” (Isa 6:8).

Second, he must rid his life of impurities hindering the hearing of God’s voice. The best exegesis, the finest theological analysis, and a mastery of the defined theme cannot compensate for a heart that is not right. Where there is sin, there is broken fellowship and divine silence. To whom did God reveal his Word? Williams answers:

He was the man who had so sensitized his conscience and purified his heart and attuned his spirit to the Spirit of God that he was worthy to be admitted into the Divine intimacy and companionship, and so became a fit messenger and interpreter, an open and transparent medium between God and man.[27]

Hence, he offers this challenge:

If we shall thus sensitize our consciences, purify our hearts and attune our minds to the mind of Christ, He will admit us into His fellowship and friendship. He will make us His intimates and confidants. He will whisper into our ears, through our own spiritual experience, messages for His people.[28]

With the psalmist, such a prophetic pastor will declare, “He is intimate with the upright” (cf. Ps 25:14).

Third, God’s contemporary prophet must come without distraction. Like Elijah, he separates himself from the preoccupations of this world and enters the desert to hear. Walter Brueggeman summarizes the point well:

The unleashing of the power for life in this world bent on death depends on pastoral work that is rigorous and prophetic work that is passionate. But such pastoral-prophetic work requires being fed by ravens, not at the king’s table.[29]

Distancing himself from occasional pleasures that compromise the hearing of God’s voice, a pastor must wait before God for the Word that he wills to be spoken. Like Isaiah, he must listen, declaring, “He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught. The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears, and I have not been rebellious” (Isa 50:4–5).

God’s Word must come on God’s terms, so that, with Jesus, a pastor might say, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me” (John 7:16). Like Paul to the Corinthians, he declares that “in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God” (2 Cor 2:17). After all, a prophetic pastor’s people do not come because of him. They are there because they come to hear a word from God. As Stowell notes,

The ultimate purpose of our preaching is not to develop a relationship between the parishioner and the preacher, but to facilitate a deepening relationship between the parishioner and his Lord.[30]

It is in this task of waiting, then, that we become conduits, not celebrities. When we are marginal to his story, his Word, we are keeping our definitions right. Preaching becomes truth communicated through personality. Our problem, as William Willimon observes, is this: “We have got the personality thing down fairly well. It’s the truth thing that may be in peril.”[31] We serve God when people are captivated by God’s Word and not by the preacher. That’s part of the prophetic role. If we do not take heed, we are less like Moses from the mountain and more like Aaron in the desert, shaping a representation of truth the people can relate to and control.

Speaking God’s Word has the potential of unleashing inestimable power. Our tendency is to take it lightly, but God’s revelation is powerful and majestic, capable of breaking the cedars and stripping a forest bare, able to strike like lightning, and able to shake the desert (Ps 29:3–11). Speaking of God’s ability to confront enemies and create the world, Job attributed such awesome display to his whisper (Job 26:13–14). Imagine what would happen when he speaks with boldness! This is the power available to the prophet who speaks a divine word. One may command certain oratorical skills, but it is the power from within that will persuade lives. The power of the OT prophet’s message was in its source, in its truth, and not in the charisma of the speaker.[32]

God’s power extended beyond the prophets’ words, to their very being. When they experienced special anointings of God’s Spirit (Num 11:25–29; Isa 42:1; 59:21), the ancient prophets were turned into other men (1 Sam 10:6). Moses was an inarticulate stammerer by nature, and Jeremiah complained that he was a novice. But these “ordinary men” received their courage, stamina, authority, and courage to enact their ministry by a divine empowerment, endowments of exceptional skill and giftedness (e.g., Isa 61:1; Jer 1:8–10). Recognizing the power that accompanied Elijah’s prophetic ministry, Elisha requested a double portion for himself (2 Kgs 2:9). Filled with the Spirit, Ezekiel was set upon his feet (Ezek 2:2). Empowered from on high, Jeremiah likened himself to a fortress, an “iron pillar” (Jer 1:18). Micah directly declared, “But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord” (Mic 3:8). Without such divine enablement, prophets were vulnerable, their words were lifeless, and their ministries were futile. Jonah stands as a warning of ministry weakened and shipwrecked when disobedience takes hold.

The same Spirit is still empowering today. Pastors need to wait upon God, not only for his Word, but also for his enabling power.

Empowered by God’s prophetic spirit, pastors become a “presence,” as Williams puts it—”a flaming incarnate conscience, like Nathan before the sinning David, or Elijah, confronting the cowardly, despicable Ahab in Naboth’s vineyard.”[33] They enter the pulpit, having sought for God to unite Word and Spirit with their spirits (Col 3:16 with Eph 5:18). Anything less, and ministry will suffer from a failure of confidence, reflect dependence upon personal abilities, and tend to take its cues from the audience. Such preaching will lack authority, coming across as asking for permission to speak, rather than as empowered preaching that boldly enters our hearts and demands a change.[34]

B. Prophetic Proclamation

Preparation sets the stage for proclamation. Ezekiel, justifying his task, explained, “So I prophesied as I was commanded” (Ezek 37:7; cf. Isa 8:11; Jer 20:7; Ezek 11:5; Joel 1:1; Amos 3:8). The prophet neither dared to omit a word nor shrink from declaring all of it (Jer 26:2). He was not to utter falsely (1 Kgs 18:20–40), nor go beyond its boundaries, thus creating a new word (Deut 18:20). Sharpened and pointed, their messages shot like an arrow into a particular situation.[35]

Prophetic pastors are hearers and proclaimers. They are under divine constraint, summoned to stand between God and man, and driven by a divine message. James Smart puts it this way,

An ear open continually toward God to hear what he has to say to weary, broken, stumbling humanity and a tongue ready and disciplined to speak the cauterizing and healing words—that is the true portrait of a prophet.[36]

Whether the hearers respond or not, they will know “that a prophet has been among them” (Ezek 2:5). So what characterizes proclamation? Prophetic preaching reveals three things:

1. God’s Prophets Preach a Message of Passion

There are few writings so ablaze with passion as the prophetic books. God’s prophets burned with fire. Vitality, power, inspiration, vision—these were the qualities and gifts of the prophets.[37] It should not be surprising. Like heated kettles that release steam, the prophets released the Word. They were in discomfort until the message was discharged. Jeremiah found that keeping God’s Word to himself was wearisome (Jer 6:11). Holding down the lid was nothing less than a burden, a “load” (as the Hebrew massa implies). On another occasion, he likened it to a “fire shut up in [his] bones” (Jer 20:9). It was either preach the Word or be consumed by it. When Amos received God’s Word, his reaction was simply, “The Sovereign Lord has spoken—who can but prophesy?” (Amos 3:8). The prophet was under compulsion, exhibiting such unusual energy that in the release he was a different person (1 Sam 10:6–9; 19:24).

The church hungers for pastors with the same energy. Those preachers serious about fulfilling their prophetic role will experience similar dynamics. They will enter the community like an Isaiah, coming out of the gates, resolute and passionate (Isa 1:2), as a Jeremiah without fear (Jer 1:17), as an Ezekiel without concern (Ezek 2:6). Like Paul, they will view themselves as men under divine constraint. When the apostle wrote, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:16), he was echoing those in the prophetic tradition who were compelled to preach or die. Pastors today need to feel the same fire burning in their bones. Joseph Stowell uses another metaphor, likening Saturday night to labor pains and Sunday morning to giving birth.[38] One paces before the start of service, anxious to release what God has created within. As Richard Neuhaus describes him,

Here is no smooth therapist, no peddler of religious palmsmancritic, no seven o’clock news commentator on portentous events. No, here is a preacher who has been visited by the seraphim with a burning coal from the altar.[39]

2. God’s Prophets Preach a Message of Prediction

The Jeremiahs of old cared about the future and longed for it. Prediction was not dominant, but it was part of their message. They anticipated the future, and so must we. While there should be the ongoing ministry of encouragement and strengthening for the present (something also described as prophetic ministry in Acts 15:32), we must help our people look beyond the present and into the future. We must boldly declare that the world as it is will be recreated to become the world that God wants it to be.[40] The biblical expectation of pastors is that they, to a time-bound audience, must consistently remind their people that one day swords will be beaten into plowshares, that death will be swallowed up, and that good will triumph. While it can be foolish to tie present-day events with prophetic texts, or identify toes and horns, prophetic pastors remind the people that the stage is being set for Christ’s return.

3. A Prediction of Judgment

God’s prophets confronted a spiritually gutted nation. And while they kept before people the vision of God, the imminent champion, companion God—”the unfailing spring of inexhaustible strength, unquenchable hope, indefatigable patience, the undying fire”[41] —they pointed out the consequences of national, family, and personal behavior (Amos 4:1–3; Isa 1:20; 5:5–6, 18–23; chaps. 12ff; 66:15–16). Their very words were the judgment. Jeremiah’s words were described as the “fire,” and the hearers were the wood that it would consume (Jer 5:14).

The words of judgment have often been vivid. Jeremiah, as with Amos, likened the coming judgment to a lion emerging from its thicket (Jer 4:7). Prophets saw themselves as men stationed on the walls, giving warning of an approaching enemy. Isaiah and Ezekiel likened their callings to that of watchmen (Isa 21:11; Ezek 3:17), forewarning people of their covenant obligations and urging kings to put their houses in order (cf. 2 Kgs 20:1). And when the nation refused to listen, there was no other course but to declare that God’s judgment would fall (Amos 4:12).

Regardless of the response, our preaching must have a similar ominous ring, alerting listeners to the subtle idolatries that can sway people away from God, warning of consequences where injustices prevail, and declaring that this present world will pass away. We too must be willing to declare, “Prepare to meet your God.”

What this requires is an attitude of constant attendance. Clergy must be on their watchtower (not merely in their ivory tower), vigilant to the potential dangers that may confront their people. Watchmen do no good if, by a false sense of respect, they allow the people to sleep and perish in their sins.[42] Like prophets of old, pastors must deliver the word forcefully, not shrinking from a needed word of judgment. They must, without hesitation, help people to see that the God of OT judgment has the same standards and demands in this age (cf. Rom 11:20–21).

It is a great disservice to be silent about sin. As Cornelius Plantinga notes about the prophets, “The prophets rebuke sin in Israel not just because it breaks God’s law, but ultimately because it breaks the peace, because it breaks even the people who commit it.”[43] The prophets sound a passionate alarm because they understand the demands of holiness, as well as the damage that sin can do. Sin is suicidal, like pulling the plug on one’s own resuscitator. The average person cannot see this, but prophets, attuned to God, see the higher stakes, the deeper corruptions.[44] They also reckon with the fact that should they not say anything, the soul that died without their warning will be laid to their account (cf. Ezek 3:18; Acts 20:26–27). This is a sobering responsibility. If we don’t take heed to declare God’s word of possible judgment, we will bear the price of the soul. Like Paul, we must ask, “Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?” (2 Cor 11:29).

4. A Prediction of Comfort

The message of ancient prophets included kindness, admonition, and severity. There was a gentleness as well as a harshness, for both reflect God’s character. There was hope, as well as consequences. Paul urged the Romans to think of God this way, both as kind and severe (Rom 11:22). Behind even the harshest of messages, the prophets always held out hope. Alongside his pronounced woes, Jeremiah spoke the words, “’The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch’”(Jer 23:5). Amidst the experience of loss, he uttered, “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (Jer 29:11). He spoke of a day God would refresh the weary and satisfy those who are faint (Jer 31:25).

Few inspired like Isaiah. Beyond the brilliance of his social criticism was his vision of the transcendent purposes of God.[45] Isaiah spoke of a new reign like David’s (Isa 11:1–9), a future paradisal Zion (Isa 2:2–4; 28:16), and a day when God’s people will be led forth in peace (Isa 55:12). “No matter how dark and dismal was the picture which they painted of the world in which they lived, they never laid down their brush till they had tinged the horizon with golden fire.”[46] Whole sections of the prophets were given to consoling, comforting, encouraging (Isaiah 40–55; Jeremiah 30–33; Ezekiel 40–48).

Pastors, who properly carry out their predictive role, do the same thing. Woven into their preaching, which at times may be stinging, must always be encouragement. While there is a prophetic role of exposing choices, even denouncing sins when necessary, there is another responsibility inherent in the task—to inspire a hopeful future. Walter Bruegggeman captures it with these words:

But note well, the prophetic is not understood primarily as denunciation or rejection, unless it is clear that there is a positive alternative available that, in fact, is true, gives life, and really functions.[47]

As the prophets preached a word of hope, so we must often offer the hope of renewal and restoration through repentance and through the hope of Messiah’s return.

5. God’s Prophets Preach a Message of Protest

The prophets were the social conscience of Israel, and their protest went in two directions.

a. Protest Against the Status Quo

With fire in their bones and warning in their voices, the prophets appeared on history’s stage and challenged the existing religious, political, and economic structures. They were a destabilizing presence, for they questioned the legitimacy of the system. The prophets contested absolute claims, and then they presented alternatives.[48] Sadly, many of the hearers sought stability, comfort, and status quo. Hence, they gravitated to alternative voices, insipid ones that gave false assurances and made few demands. Those false voices who accommodated to the peoples’ wishes, who wanted the applause of men more than the reward from God, sacrificed the truth upon the altar of acceptance and prophesied falsely. And like today, the people loved it (cf. Jer 5:31).

Nonetheless, out of a passion for truth, God’s prophets stood their ground and prophesied against acts of ungodliness, against the false gods that culture created to follow (Jer 2:27–28; 7:16f; 10:1–5). God’s men took on those who tickled ears. Ezekiel saved some of his severest language for these false shepherds of Israel, who were focused on their own affairs and less concerned with the well-being of the sheep (Ezek 34:1–10). Jeremiah likened the godless priests and prophets to straw, a substance having nothing in common with grain (Jer 23:10, 28).

The prophets led a protest against those who failed to reckon with the Sovereign One. Just as false prophets and priests were rebuked, so were false kings, leaders who rejected the notion that Yahweh alone was King. Elijah mocked the agents, sponsors, and benefactors of the dominant system. He took on Ahab and his religious system, ridiculing their incapacity and ineptness.

Is it too much to say that a similar spirit of protest is required of contemporary pastors? If not, what is required? It will demand that we confront conditions as they are, rejecting certain political influences and refusing to pander to the passions of the masses. With Micaiah, each one must declare, “I can tell him only what the Lord tells me” (1 Kgs 22:14). To those who govern, prophetic preachers must “audaciously clarify sovereignty,” challenging those who assume they hold the power to make the nation safe.[49] Pastors are called not to preserve and protect things as they are, but to call for the changes holiness demands. It is critical that they open the eyes of their people to the dominant language of this world system while challenging the church to be an alternative culture. Those who lead the worship of God are required to “stand things on their heads in the perceptions of its audience, to rob the established order of the most fundamental power of all: its sheer facticity.”[50]

If this prophetic role is not carried out, if our message does not embody biblical truth and moral fiber, Clapp warns that we as a culture will continue to become “systematically miseducated, under-estimated, financially pampered, and morally exploited.”[51] We will fail to see what is really in front of us. Personal choice will remain a cover for abortion on demand, and death with dignity will serve to mask euthanasia. Those with convictions will appear as narrow-minded, and those who are intolerant of sexual perversion will be seen as bigots. The hope is prophetic pastors, who will expose secular deceptions, unmask the idols that keep the system running, and inform hearers of the principalities and powers behind it all. Jesus, in his prophetic role, was constantly doing this.

Protesting against the status quo will require integration into community and, paradoxically, a certain disengagement from it. Pastors will need to be attuned to their age, informed regarding their culture, and involved with lives inside and outside of the church. Yet, prophets must always maintain a certain distance. OT prophets were detached from society, which gave them freedom and boldness to speak as God commanded. Elijah, for example, was even given a different food supply. Shifting to the NT, John escaped to the desert. Jesus summoned his disciples to leave their nets and renounce the rulers of their age. The more we are absorbed into things as they are, the tamer will be our message and the duller will be our protest.

b. Protest Against Injustice

Injustice, bondage, and every other residue of sin repelled the prophets of the past. They saw how sin victimized people, and excesses burdened the poor. And so, from Moses to Malachi, God’s prophetic voices assaulted every social disorder (cf. Amos 5:6–7). They cared intensely about the moral shape of society. Hence, there was a well-developed moral content to their pronouncements; the consequences of injustice were delineated with great clarity.[52] The prophet reflected God’s concern for the poor and helpless, as well as his anger towards oppression of any sort. With the passion that flows out of a heart outraged by the status quo, they spoke out for the oppressed.[53]

So must today’s prophetic pastors speak, for ours is a world moving in a direction of moral failure and injustice at every level. A bumper sticker in Portland, Oregon, has aptly summed up our age: “If You’re Not Outraged—You’re not Paying Attention.” Lust has weakened the nation’s leaders, while greed has disenfranchised the weak and the poor. As one editorial argues, it is no longer an arms race, but a prosperity race, in which the rich no longer want to carry the poor.[54] If God’s prophets do not speak up for them, protesting the injustice of it all, who will?

Such protest must become a form of aggression, for God is conducting holy war, the field of conflict being the human heart. The prophets invite contemporary pastors to stand up with them and ask, “What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the face of the poor?” (Isa 3:15). They urge men to look into the eyes of those ruled by greed and say with Nathan the prophet: “You are the man!” (2 Sam 12:7). They challenge pastors to be contemporary Elijahs, issuing a choice, “How long will you waver between two opinions?” (1 Kgs 18:21). As unintimidated critics of corrupted society, prophetic pastors call for people to make their decision—God or Baal, holiness or sin, justice or injustice.[55] They warn of judgment where the choice is wrong. They risk offense, knowing that, ultimately, it is the gospel that is the offense, and it is the Word that is the scandal.

The true prophet speaks with the heart of a pastor and with the passion of one who has seen and felt the pain and suffering of the dispossessed, the helpless, and the disenfranchised.[56] But such passion moves beyond the hurting, even to those leveling the hurt (cf. Prov 24:17). As Earl Shelp notes, “The true prophets’ denunciation has the force of righteousness to the extent that it is born out of care—both for the oppressed and the oppressors.”[57] And it comes with the hope that lives will turn around and take advantage of the grace a longsuffering God always holds out. Thus, it is far more than mere social criticism. It is preaching done out of a passion for God’s righteousness, and also out of compassion for people. As Bonhoeffer noted, “Nothing can be more cruel than the tenderness that consigns another to his sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe rebuke that recalls a brother back from the path of sin.”[58] Williams continues, “While he may strive with his fiery invectives to sting and burn callous consciences into sensitiveness, he must still love the sinner while he hates the sin.”[59]

C. Prophetic Performance

The prophets of God have not only left us a model of preparation and a manner of proclamation—their lives also teach us how to live.

1. Prophetic Pastors Live a Life of Identification

They are not mere dispensers of truth, untouched by sin and hurt and insulated by the walls of their sanctuaries. Prophetic pastors walk with their people. Micah’s example is illustrative of most OT prophets. After declaring judgment against Israel and Judah, he determined to identify with his people, declaring: “Because of this I will weep and wail; I will go about barefoot and naked. I will howl like a jackal and moan like an owl” (Mic 1:8). The prophet not only presented a painful message at times, but he engaged in the pain. Daniel lived an exemplary life. Nonetheless, he stood alongside his exiled people and declared before God, “We have sinned and done wrong…. We have not listened to your servants” (Dan 9:5–6).

Jeremiah is remembered far more for his weeping than his invectives (cf. Jer 9:1). His identification with his people placed him in apparent conflict with God’s Word. The moral currency of Israel was devalued to such an extent that intercession was deemed worthless, even an act of disobedience. Jeremiah nonetheless prayed. Despite divine warnings that God would not hear (see Jer 7:16; 11:14; 14:11; 15:1), Jeremiah sought for God’s ear. Lamentations, Jeremiah’s funeral service for Jerusalem, closes with these words of intercession—”Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may return” (Lam 5:21). Give us another chance! Like other prophets, he often found himself standing in the middle. Smart gives this description of the tension:

God’s purpose is his purpose and God’s word his word, and yet at the same time, bonded with his nation, carrying upon his heart the burden of its sin and the peril of its situation, so that he feels in himself the agony of the judgment he proclaims.[60]

Habakkuk, despite the harshness of his message, prayed, “in wrath remember mercy” (Hab 3:2). These men were never mere spectators on the sidelines, but were linked in the togetherness of all that is human. It would be a mistake to see them as angry men, unrestrained and uncaring in their zeal. The reality is that a shepherd’s tender heart was behind all they did. Elijah spoke as courageously, as forcefully as any. Yet textured in his history are pictures of a man deeply present with the most needy. “A prophet hears not one imperative but two: prescription and compassion, a love of truth and an abiding solidarity with those for whom that truth has eclipsed.”[61]

It’s the same with pastors who choose to be prophetic. They have not fulfilled their ministries by merely preparing and proclaiming God’s truths. As Stott notes, “Truth is powerful when it is argued; it is even more powerful when it is exhibited.”[62] As God’s representatives, they must also enter into and share the sufferings of those who might be working through the effects of their disobedience. Like the weeping prophet Jeremiah, prophetic pastors mourn for their culture and cry with their people. This is the first order of pastoral ministry.[63] Too often, however, we distance ourselves. Preaching becomes shrill, praying becomes compartmentalized (taking on the tone of Luke 18:11), and sinful conditions remain status quo.

2. Prophetic Pastors Live a Life of Sacrifice

Because of the nature of their task, OT prophets were not strangers to difficulty. Often they experienced loneliness and isolation. Jeremiah writes, “I sat alone because your hand was on me” (Jer 15:17). The people wanted to hear pleasant words. They gravitated to those who prophesied illusions (Isa 6:10). But God’s prophets declared the truth, and it exposed them to ridicule and injury (cf. Isa 6:11; 20:1–6; Jeremiah 16; Daniel 6; Hos 1:1–3; Hab 3:1–2). It placed them in conflict with the established religious leaders of the day. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, ordered Amos to get out of town (Amos 7:12). God’s men were insulted, tossed into dungeons and wells, and even sawed in half (Heb 11:36–38). Jeremiah speaks throughout his book about writhing in pain; the agony of his heart; his heart pounding within him—he could not keep silent (cf Jer 11:18–23; 12:6; 18:18; 20:1–3; 26:1–24). Abuse was so prevalent that Jesus characterized Jerusalem in his day as a prophetic killing field.

When OT prophets pronounced God’s judgments to the people, it often prompted maledictions of their own (note Jer 15:10).[64]

God’s watchmen could have huddled with cowards and allowed evil and simplemindedness to hold sway; instead they raised their voices like a trumpet and declared to people their transgressions (Isa 58:1). Nathan, as David’s pastor, carried out this prophetic role, warning the king of the consequences of his adultery and murder, a dirge chanted in all the historical and prophetic books of the OT. He did it with courage, knowing it could have cost him his life. Jeremiah’s words stung a culture’s pride and brought its wrath. Yet, he, as well as his peers, were not unpatriotic. Rather, to use Stanley Crouch’s phrase, they lived out an “unsentimental patriotism” that was not afraid to call the people back to God.[65]

Prophets in contemporary society will also be subject to the same risks. Ministry is inseparably linked with difficulty. Failing to live within the world’s parameters, pastors will experience isolation and separation (cf. 2 Corinthians 6). Those who take uncompromising moral stands, confront unethical parishioners, and preach unpopular truths will be castigated as pessimistic and sanctimonious fussbudgets. The preference will be for ministers who are chaplains of religious expectations and guardians of cherished traditions. Paul warned of this in 2 Tim 4:3–4. In the context of his own appeal to pastors to be prophetic, to preach in season and out, he warned Timothy that days would come when people would gravitate to preachers who would confirm their illusions.

Those who stand firm will unleash contemporary Jezebels who scream, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them” (1 Kgs 19:2). The flesh will scream, and the devil will bare his teeth. After all, the human heart is fiercely guarded ground. Neuhaus warns,

The preacher who insists we wrestle with his truth, which he has wrestled from God’s truth, is vulnerable to being rejected as a liar, fool, or false teacher. The stakes are much higher for him. The prow of the pulpit makes waves.[66]

All of this will demand a bold and dauntless faith. To be a prophet demands courage, for a prophet of God is called to confront the evil of his day (Amos 3:7–8). The line must be drawn, the demand must be made, and informing must become inflaming.[67] Regardless of the response of those to whom one ministers, it is the call of God to which one must remain loyal. When one experiences God’s prophetic call, he is left with no option.[68] There is an obligation to obey a God who loves his church to the utmost. A person with a sense of call, a sense of mission, does not hesitate to accept scorn and derision. As Sunderland notes, a prophet “does what he has to do.”[69] Yet, with the sacrifice comes great reward—the privilege of being God’s mouthpiece, of suffering for the cause of Christ (Phil 3:10).

3. Prophetic Pastors Live a Life of Obedience

The prophets, for the most part, did not run from their calling. There were exceptions, such as Jonah, who ran from the presence and calling of God. Others capitulated to the whims of the hearers, telling the people what they wanted to hear (cf. Jeremiah 14). But in the main, the prophets were faithful. At times, God’s expectation for their lives bordered on the outrageous. The prophets were ordered to stand eye-to-eye with wicked kings and pronounce judgment, commanded to go naked, lie down for months, marry prostitutes, and pray in defiance of edicts by pagan rulers.

Should we commit ourselves to the prophetic task, God will lay demands before us that will tempt us to run. We will probably not be faced with the burdens God placed on Ezekiel or Jeremiah, but all the same, we will be tempted to run from the prophetic task. We will find ourselves called to a Ninevah of sorts, and our proneness to disobedience will lure us to Tarshish. Peterson writes candidly of what this is like for modern prophets.[70] We will question the compatibility of integrating the prophetic role in a pastoral setting. Can we truly be a prophet, and at the same time a pastor? Is there not an inherent conflict in the terms? How can we preach prophetic sermons to a congregation that would much prefer comfort? How can we tell unpleasant truths to people we have learned to love? Richard Niebuhr prepares us for the tension: “Once personal contact is established you are very prone to temper your wind to the shorn sheep.”[71] Budding priests never bloom into parish prophets.

IV. Conclusion

There is an obvious need, there is biblical rationale, and there is a clear paradigm for prophetic ministry. Taking our cues from the OT prophet, we realize the importance of a necessary balance between love and justice, truth and kindness (Prov 3:3). Being prophetic is not inconsistent with being a pastor. We must be obedient to the calling of both.

Kenneth Kaunda, former President of Zambia, some time ago declared, “What a nation needs more than anything else is not a Christian ruler in the palace but a Christian prophet within earshot.”[72] The same could be said of the church. When people intersect with the ministry of a pastor, they need to have heard the words and sensed the heart of a prophet. Pastors are not mandated to replicate an Elijah or a Jeremiah, or any other OT prophet, but they need to take the prophetic picture as unveiled in the OT and incorporate it into their identity.

An earlier prophetic pastor gave this challenge:

Let us cultivate and develop the prophetic element in our ministry. Let the spirit of the prophet fuse into oneness and inspire with its spiritual vitality all the other offices and functions of our many-sided ministry. For it is the supreme and essential, the basic and noblest element in it.[73]

Notes

1. David F. Wells, Losing Our Virtue (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 2.
2. Rodney Clapp, A Peculiar People (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1996), 105.
3. Calvin Miller, Walking with Saints (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995), 164–65.
4. Bill Hull, Can We Save the Evangelical Church? (Grand Rapids: Revell, 1993), 10.
5. John Stott, The Gospel and the End of Time (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1991), 27. See also his discussion in The Message of Ephesians (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1979), 161ff. Stott describes the present prophetic role of the pastor as a “subsidiary gift of some kind,” but one that is not easily defined (p. 162).
6. Daniel L. Migliore, “The Passion of God and the Prophetic Task of Pastoral Ministry,” in The Pastor as Prophet (ed. Earl E. Shelp and Ronald H. Sunderland; New York: Pilgrim, 1985), 123.
7. J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1973), 71.
8. John E. Johnson, “The Old Testament Offices As Paradigm For Pastoral Identity,” BibSac 152 (April-June 1995): 182-200.
9. Stanley M. Hauerwas, “The Pastor as Prophet: Ethical Reflections on an Improbable Mission,” in The Pastor as Prophet, 38. Moses was the great prophet of the OT, but Christ was even greater (Deut 18:15; Matt 11:9; 16:13–14; Mark 6:15; Luke 4:18–21; 7:16; 13:33; John 4:19; 6:14; 18:37; Acts 3:22).
10. Ronald H. Sunderland and Earl E. Shelp, “Prophetic Ministry: An Introduction,” in The Pastor as Prophet, 8.
11. John Stott, The Spirit, the Church, and the World (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1990), 74. See D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 154.
12. Sunderland and Shelp, “Prophetic Ministry,” 26. Looking at the OT office and the present pastoral role, they conclude that “the prophetic has been and continues to be a key aspect of the ministry of God’s people.” In a later article in the book, Hauerwas adds, “It is not a question of pastor or prophet, but how one pastors” (“The Pastor as Prophet,” 44).
13. Peter Adam, Speaking God’s Words (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1996), 120.
14. J. I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit (Old Tappan: Revell, 1984), 217.
15. Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures (3 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 1:42.
16. Cf. James D. Smart, The Rebirth of Ministry (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 56.
17. Charles D. Williams, Prophetic Ministry for Today (New York: MacMillan, 1921), 26. Speaking of this succession, David Hill writes, “It is those who have grasped the meaning of Scripture, perceived its powerful relevance to the life of the individual, the church and society, and declare that message fearlessly who are the true successors of OT and NT prophets” (New Testament Prophecy [Atlanta: Knox, 1975], 213).
18. Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures, 16.
19. Ibid., 42. In a later volume, Old gives an account of Italian preacher Girolamo Savonarola, who preached through the prophecies of Amos with such insight that many of his contemporaries recognized that he had exercised the prophetic ministry among them.
20. Philip Yancey, “The Bible’s ‘Fusty Old Men,’” Christianity Today (2 October 1987): 17.
21. John C. Ortberg, “Denominations and Dinosaurs,” Books & Culture 4 (July-August 1998): 14.
22. Robert D. Culver, “na-bis,” TWOT 2:544–45. See Joseph Blenkinsopp, Sage, Priest, Prophet (Louisville: Westminster, 1995), 124.
23. F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament in Ten Volumes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973), 7:33.
24. Elizabeth Achtemeier, “Preaching the Prophets With Honor,” Leadership Journal 18 (Fall 1997): 59.
25. Charles Edward Jefferson, The Minister as Prophet (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1905), 4.
26. John MacArthur Jr., Rediscovering Expository Preaching (Waco: Word, 1992), 348.
27. Williams, Prophetic Ministry for Today, 24.
28. Ibid., 25.
29. Walter Brueggemann, “The Pastor as a Destabilizing Presence,” in The Pastor as Prophet, 77.
30. Joseph M. Stowell, Shepherding the Church into the 21st Century (Wheaton: Victor, 1994), 216.
31. William Willimon, “Naked Preachers Are Distracting,” Christianity Today (6 April 1998): 62. Thomas Oden adds these helpful words: “We take this office and bring to it our personal being, our unique experience, our existential life and language, and we then infuse the office with our personality. The office of preaching needs the imprint of personality, without being reduced to it. You must risk telling your own story, not as an end in itself, but rather as a sharply focused lens through which the whole Christian story is refracted” (Pastoral Theology [San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983], 131).
32. Sunderland and Shelp, “Prophetic Ministry,” 9.
33. Williams, Prophetic Ministry for Today, 34.
34. David Fisher speaks well to the issue of authority in preaching (The 21st Century Pastor [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996], 244f.).
35. Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures, 49.
36. Smart, The Rebirth of Ministry, 55.
37. Williams, Prophetic Ministry for Today, 136. Blenkinsopp, in defining the prophet, writes: “Another distinguishing mark in contrast to the legislator, teacher of ethics, religious reformer, or mystic leader, is the elements of vital, emotional preaching” (Sage, Priest, Prophet, 116).
38. Stowell, Shepherding the Church, 219.
39. Richard Neuhaus, Freedom for Ministry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 173.
40. Yancey, “The Bible’s ‘Fusty Old Men,’” 20.
41. Williams, Prophetic Ministry for Today, 131.
42. Thomas Oden, Becoming a Minister (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 32.
43. Cornelius Plantinga, “The Sinner and the Fool,” First Things 46 (October 1994): 28.
44. Ibid.
45. Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures, 66.
46. Jefferson, The Minister as Prophet, 64.
47. Brueggemann, “The Prophet,” 52.
48. Ibid.
49. Hauerwas, “The Pastor as Prophet,” 42.
50. Clapp, A Peculiar People, 96.
51. Ibid., 192.
52. Sunderland and Shelp, “Prophetic Ministry,” 9.
53. Smart, The Rebirth of Ministry, 57–58.
54. George F. Will, “The Poor are Unwanted in the ‘Secessionist Age,’” International Herald Tribune (25 June 1998). Will warns of a present “dismantlement” going on in the world. “Prosperity has dethroned power as the primary concern of states.” Hence, when a cultural or ethnic group decides that it is the principal generator of wealth in a larger nation or federation, a secessionist movement is just a press release away. Mexico (north/south), Italy, Germany, Spain are recent examples, that, in part, must be countered by prophets in the church.
55. Oden, Pastoral Theology, 139.
56. Sunderland and Shelp, “Prophetic Ministry,” 11.
57. Ibid.
58. Dietrick Bonhoeffer, Life Together (San Francisco: Harper, 1954), 107.
59. Williams, Prophetic Ministry for Today, 130.
60. Smart, The Rebirth of Ministry, 55.
61. Ibid.
62. John Stott, Involvement: Being a Responsible Christian in a Non-Christian Society (2 vols.; Old Tappan: Revell, 1984), 1:110.
63. Eugene H. Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 126.
64. Deryck Sheriffs, The Friendship of the Lord (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1996), 227.
65. Michael Cromartie, “The Omni-American,” Books & Culture 4 (May/June 98): 14.
66. Neuhaus, Freedom for Ministry, 172.
67. As Oden puts it, “There are times when the preacher must have the courage to stand up as the conscience of the community, as an unintimidated critic of a corrupted society” (Pastoral Theology, 139).
68. Sunderland and Shelp, “Prophetic Ministry,” 9.
69. Ibid., 10. Oden adds this counsel: “Pastoral courage is needed to identify accurately the particular deficit or injustice or lack of awareness in the flock at a given time. But if you are going to offend the flock, offend them with the truth. You have it turned around if you yourself are the offense. Let the gospel be the offense; let the word be the scandal; let the truth be the offense. That is good preaching in the prophetic tradition” (Pastoral Theology, 138).
70. Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), see chap 1.
71. See quote in Hauerwas, “The Pastor as Prophet,” 29.
72. Quoted in Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), 246.
73. Williams, Prophetic Ministry for Today, 24.

The Old Testament Offices as Paradigm for Pastoral Identity

By John E. Johnson

[John E. Johnson is pastor of the Trinity Baptist International Church, Wassenaar, The Netherlands.]

Many pastors face an identity crisis. They ask themselves, “Who am I? Why should the people in my congregation listen to me? What is my identity as a minister of Christ?” As Neuhaus notes, “It is not an academic exercise but a day-to-day struggle to make sense of who we are and what we are doing.”[1] Of its importance, Oates writes, “If you are to do your work well, refreshing strength must be afforded you from a coherent vision of your identity.”[2]

Pastors and others have wrestled with this problem over the centuries.[3] Yet the issue may be more intensely felt today. “Clearly the pastor-teacher is enveloped in a critical identity crisis in our time.”[4] In fact pastoral identity may be the contemporary crisis in pastoral ministry.[5]

Pastors struggle with this question for three reasons. First, this concern has emerged out of a deficiency in pastoral theology. As one noted pastor states, “In my opinion, much of the ferment in ministry, the identity crisis most of us live with, is largely a theological failure.”[6] Much of pastoral training has been devoted to the practice rather than the theology of ministry. The focus is on administration, preaching, leadership skills, small-group dynamics, and other related duties. Too little time has been given to developing a theology of ministry, in which students address what God defines as ministry and calls a minister to be.

The second reason for the confusion has to do with the present culture. People have changed in how they expect pastors to spend their time, preach their sermons, and shepherd their people. Whereas in the past a pastor was principally viewed as resident theologian and preacher, today there is the expectation that a pastor should be, among other things, a chief executive officer, a therapist, and/or a church growth specialist.

Pastors are now forced to extend their energies to a new line of responsibilities, which sometimes eclipse the older and more foundational responsibilities.[7] If a pastor seeks to pursue a genuinely God-centered ministry, it will, as Oakes puts it, “collide head-on with the self-absorption and anthropocentric focus that has become common place in many evangelical churches.”[8]

Other voices are underscoring the concern.

The ministry, like other occupations today, is much preoccupied with the discussion of “role models,” “role expectations,” “role conflicts,” and such. The minister is expected to be preacher, leader of worship, counselor, teacher, scholar, helper of the needy, social critic, administrator, revivalist, fund-raiser, and a host of other sometimes impossible things.[9]

Neuhaus continues:

Pastors harassed by these conflicting expectations and claims upon time and ability are tempted to embark upon an open-ended game of tradeoffs. Today I’ll be a little of this and a little of that; tomorrow I’ll be a little of the other things and something else. For the conscientious, who are determined to keep the game going, it is a certain formula for confusion and collapse.[10]

Many pastors entered the ministry with a clear vision and high ideals and have left battered, confused, disoriented. The loss of bearings, the blurring of identity, has become a major cause of physical and emotional “burnout” in the ministry.[11]

The third reason for this pastoral identity crisis is the present drift toward relativism and a pluralistic mind-set. Together, they have raised the question of pastoral relevancy. “The pastoral ministry,” writes Wells, “has been culturally adrift for a long time. It has been dislodged from the network of what is meaningful and valuable in society.”[12] As Peterson said, “In general, people treat us with respect, but we are not considered important in any social, cultural, or economic way.”[13] The result is an uneasiness settling over the work of ministers like a thick fog, a perplexity that causes them to wonder who they are.

Moving toward a Solution

The point of this article is that the roots of pastoral identity are found in the Old Testament offices of prophet, priest, sage, and king. These offices were held by the spiritual leaders or “pastors” of the Old Testament era, each one bringing a unique identity, calling, giftedness, and role.

From these offices the fundamental marks of a minister emerge, guiding him in both his self-concept as well as his day-to-day responsibilities before God. They must be taken together, for they bring out the comprehensive nature of a pastor’s calling.[14] To disregard any one of these roles will distort both the identity and the function of the pastor.[15]

“If we are to form a clear conception of Christian ministry, we do not first turn inward and begin in a highly individualistic way to ask how we feel about it this moment…nor do we turn to public opinion polls to obtain a proper definition of ministry.”[16] Instead, Christian leaders must look to models in the Bible.

Oden makes a compelling case for Christ as the model for pastoral identity.[17] “If ministry cannot be clearly established as the continuation of Jesus’ own intention and practice, we lose its central theological premise.”[18]

On the other hand Fisher says Paul is the “primary model”[19] for pastoral ministry. While Paul seems a high ideal to emulate, he was still a human being with frailties and limitations. Christ may be the foundation, but Paul serves as the framework.

This article, however, explores the models Jesus brought to fullest expression and that Paul seemingly emulated. As noted, they must be taken collectively, for together they incorporate the whole of ministry. Finding pastoral identity in an Old Testament setting seems logical. As part of the company of the redeemed, the church is a community of faith, a people of God, with the same needs to be mediated from on high. There is the need of a priest to mediate God’s forgiveness, the need of a prophet to mediate God’s Word, the need of a sage to mediate God’s wisdom, the need of a king to mediate God’s rule.

The Nature of the Old Testament Offices

By the time of Luther and Calvin, the three offices of prophet, priest, and king became the central organizing principle of Protestant Christological teaching, the manner in which to describe the ministry of Christ.[20] These also serve as the central organizing structure of the pastoral office.

It seems reasonable, however, to add a fourth office, a fourth distinct class of individuals who minister to the community of faith, namely, the sage. There are several reasons for viewing the wise man as a fourth office. First, the Old Testament viewed the sage on a level parallel with the priest and prophet (Jer 18:18). Like priest and prophet, “wise” was used as a noun to describe a vocational post.[21] “The wise man constituted a third office, using wisdom in harmony with the function of the other two offices.”[22] This is also affirmed by Waltke, who argues that both sage and prophet were “true spiritual yokefellows,” speaking with the same authority and making similar demands on their hearers.[23] “For wisdom, man needs both the priest with hisתּוֹרָה , the prophet with his דָּבָר, and the sage with his צָה.”24

Second, just as Christ is the ultimate Prophet, Priest, and King, so He likewise was recognized as the Sage of all sages (Matt 12:42).

Third, wisdom is a fundamental thread in the tapestry of Old Testament revelation. To leave out the sage would be to ignore a major part of God’s ministry to Israel through His servants. Wisdom was the ethical outworking of the Law. Cook asks, “Have we been so captivated by the traditional approach to the three offices of Christ that we have missed the obvious?”[25] To overlook the work of the sage robs the pastor of an essential part of his identity. Failing to recognize his role as a sage to his people, he trivializes the importance attached to his role as a wise counselor.

Assuming the validity of all four offices, the following summaries serve as a foundation to describe the pastor’s identity.

The Prophet

The prophet was an individual called from among his peers.[26] God’s calling affirmed that he was a man who belonged first and foremost to God. This is underscored by the title “man of God.” Being called means that he was divinely enabled. Prophecy was not some native faculty, some special genius or innate talent. Moses was an inarticulate stammerer by nature, and Jeremiah complained that he was a novice.

At the heart of his identity, the prophet was a mouthpiece for God, called to speak in the name of God. He was one who could see spiritual realities others could not see. He was authorized to speak authoritatively for God (Exod 7:1–2; Dan 9:6).

God’s prophets were individuals under divine constraint, officers of the heavenly court. They were men God had summoned and impelled. Ezekiel, giving a rationale for his task, explained, “So I prophesied as I was commanded” (Ezek 37:7; cf. Isa 8:11; Jer 20:7; Ezek 11:5; Joel 1:1; Amos 3:8). The prophet dared not omit a word (Jer 26:2) nor utter falsely (1 Kings 18:20–40).

The prophets were called to speak the Word of God (Deut 18:18; Jer 1:9). They were not creating a new doctrine but they realized they were spokesmen for God.27 The prophet was overwhelmed with a sense of God’s message. He had no freedom to go beyond its boundaries (Deut 18:20). Neither could he shrink from declaring all of it.

Often the message from God was a burden. The prophet was under such compulsion that he was a different person (1 Sam 10:6–9). He was in discomfort until the message was released. The act of keeping the revelation inside Jeremiah was likened to a “burning fire shut up in [his] bones” (Jer 20:9). Brought on by his refusal to proclaim it to a derisive audience, he mourned, “I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it.”

In speaking God’s word, the prophet was called to awaken the mind, care for the soul, and instruct the heart. In particular, he was called to warn people to return to their covenant obligations.

The Priest

The priest, referred to some seven hundred times in the Old Testament and 80 in the New, was identified with sacrifice, intercession, and blessing.

At the heart of the priest’s character was holiness (Exod 39:30; Ezek 44:11). He was called to wholeness, symbolized by his exclusion from the altar if he had any physical impairments (Lev 21:17). All this was necessary, for the priest was invited into the presence of God, where he would inquire of God, wearing the Urim and Thummim. More than anyone else, he came into the closest possible contact with Israel’s God.[28]

The one who was invited into the tabernacle was also called to be its guardian, to look after the sanctuary. Among his duties, the priest was called to serve at the altar and officiate in God’s “chapel” (Deut 18:5). Within this context, he was called essentially to care for the soul.[29] Hence his was a work of interceding for God’s people (Joel 2:17), intervening on their behalf with God, and bringing sacrifice (Heb 5:1). Essential to his mission was preparing the people to meet God. The priest was also called to pronounce blessings (Lev 9:22; Num 6:22–27; Deut 21:5).

His role, then, was a beautiful complement to that of the prophet. As the prophet stood to represent God, the priest entered God’s presence to represent man. Both functions were and are critical to the spiritual formation of God’s people.

The Sage

The sage was also called of God, summoned to be a channel for the wisdom of God. He was the scholar of his day, called to teach students how to integrate truth with life. In particular, he was set apart to exhort people to fear the Lord, the first principle of wisdom (Prov 1:7). His words were like ox goads (Eccl 12:11), effective in moving people to action. Like tent pegs, his sayings were driven into the hearts, so that lives would not be blown away by the winds of life’s storms.

Solomon was the sage of sages in the Old Testament (1 Kings 4:29–32; 10:1–9). Others are named, but little is known about them (1 Kings 4:31; Prov 30:1; 31:1). Working in a context previously established and defined by the priest and prophet, the sages pointed their hearers to the ethical demands of the Law. They composed Israel’s wisdom literature, counseled her kings, and consoled and guided her people.[30] The priest had the Law, the prophet his vision, and the sage his counsel. “The priest guided the repentant to the way of forgiveness in the law; the prophet aroused the sinner to the point of repentance; the wise counseled him not to do the wrong in the first place.”[31]

Through his pastoral ministry, as a student of the Word and a professional observer of life, the sage guided people to live out the Law. In training people in the skills of living God’s Word, the sage provided down-to-earth good sense. “They functioned very much as Christian pastors today in their work between Sundays,” training the people to use what they know of God’s way in everyday routines.[32]

The King

Though this office did not emerge until the 11th century, the king also brought a necessary dimension to the shepherding of the people. In fact shepherding and ruling were concepts associated with kingship by the elders in David’s day (2 Sam 5:2). Called to exercise authority wisely, the king was responsible to maintain and defend the state, and to insure justice. Above all, he was to fear the Lord (Deut 17:14–20).

Like the prophet and priest, the king was anointed, consecrated for his task, sharing in God’s holiness (1 Sam 10:10; 16:13; 24:6). In fact “anointed” most commonly referred to the king of Israel. Therefore great respect was due the king (1 Sam 24:6–11; 26:9, 11, 23; 2 Sam 1:14, 16).

In a certain sense he was looked on as a savior, ensuring the welfare of his people (Ps 72; 2 Kings 13:5). Yet, as de Vaux points out, Israel’s faith in God “made any deification of the king impossible.”[33] At times he performed priestly acts, leading Israel in worship (2 Sam 24:25; 1 Kings 5–8), offering sacrifices (2 Sam 6:13; 24:25), and blessing the people (6:18). Yet he was not a priest (2 Chron 26:18).

The king’s principal task was to lead the nation, the people of God. The king’s ability to lead and administer the affairs of state rested on his obedience. The accounts of Kings and Chronicles underscore repeatedly the direct relationship between a leader’s competence to command and his personal godliness.

The prophets declared God’s Word, the priests mediated God’s forgiveness, the sages instructed the people to walk in godly wisdom, and the king led the people, administrating justice, establishing boundaries, utilizing resources, and leading into battle.

The Four Offices and Christ

In Christ, the four offices came into perfect bloom. “In one figure alone were all offices adequately united, sufficiently displayed, and fully consummated—Jesus Christ.”[34] Looking back, clearly the offices served to foreshadow and anticipate the Minister par excellence.

In successive states these offices were revealed in Christ, moving to a dramatic climax. In His earthly ministry, He first appeared as a Prophet, then as a wise Sage. In His suffering and death, He revealed His identity as Priest. In His glorification, He rules over His spiritual kingdom as Head of the church, and He will return to earth to establish His millennial rule over the world as King of kings. More than guidelines for His ministry, then, the offices are, as Walvoord puts it, the “key” to the purpose of the incarnation.[35]

Christ not only brought the offices of the Old Testament to perfect expression; He also radically altered them. He taught not merely with words, but was God’s own living Word. He interceded, not as a Levitical priest with animal sacrifice, but as the great High Priest, bringing the sacrifice of His own body. He counseled, not as a mere sage acquainted with the ways of life, but as the very personification of wisdom. And Christ governs, not like the rulers of this earth, but as the Heir of all things.

As Prophet

As the Prophet of all prophets, Jesus declared the word of God from the moment He began His public ministry (Luke 2:47). Moses was the great prophet of the Old Testament, but Christ was even greater (Deut 18:15; Matt 11:9; 16:13–14; Mark 6:15; Luke 4:18–21; 7:16; 13:33; John 4:19; 6:14; Acts 3:22; 7:37; Heb 1:1–2).

Jesus’ prophetic identity was demonstrated by His titles (Rabbi, Master, Teacher, Apostle). Some people thought He was Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets (Mark 8:27).

By His earthly ministry, Christ was the perfect model for those called to the prophetic task. As the Revealer of divine revelation, He modeled what He proclaimed (John 14:6), and bathed truth in the waters of kindness as He reached out to the lost, the hurting, and children (John 4; Mark 7; 10). There was variety in His preaching. Stories, seemingly harmless on the surface, were powerfully penetrating. His message, though concise, had unparalleled authority (Matt 7:28–29).

As Priest

Christ’s identity as Priest, after the order of Melchizedek, was held in reserve during most of His earthly ministry, hidden for the most part (Ps 110:4). However, near the end there was no mystery as to His calling as the perfect High Priest (John 17). His sacrifice was unique because it was a self-offering. He offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice, the sacrificial Lamb to atone for sin (John 1:29; Rom 3:25; Eph 5:2; 1 Tim 2:5–6; 1 John 2:2; Rev 5:6). Hebrews presents Him as the superior, all-sufficient Sacrifice (Heb 7:27; 9:12).

In His present ministry He serves as the believers’ High Priest. He continually intercedes for them (John 17; Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25), touched by their infirmities and sympathizing with their weaknesses (Heb 4:15). Through both the Cross and His present work in heaven, He saves sinners from crippling guilt (2 Cor 5:21; 1 John 2:1) and promises the blessing of eternal life for those who believe.

As Sage

While Solomon is presented in the Old Testament as the sage par excellence (1 Kings 3:1–15), Christ is presented in the New Testament as the One greater than Solomon (Matt 12:42), the One in whom wisdom is culminated (Col 2:3). Possessing the characteristics of a sage (Luke 2:47), He increased in wisdom’s stature (v. 52), and overwhelmed His hearers with His wisdom (Matt 13:54).

As King

While David, more than any other king, reflected the godly role of the Old Testament king, Christ is the King of kings, who will fulfill all the covenant promises as David’s greater Son (Rev 17:14). He was born the King of the Jews (Matt 2:2), and in His ministry He provided and provides judicial governance as the King (Isa 9:6–7; Ps 2:6; Luke 1:32–33; John 18:37; 1 Tim 6:15; Rev 19:16).

He came as the promised messianic King, executing God’s justice (Matt 18) and carrying out the Sovereign’s mandates (28:19–20). As King (27:11), His preaching promoted God’s kingdom (Mark 1:14–15), a kingdom that consists of righteousness, peace, and joy (Rom 14:17). He came to release mankind from spiritual bondage. As ascended King, He orders, directs, and preserves the church as its Head (Eph 1:22), and provides its resources (4:8–9). However, the full revelation of His work as King is reserved for His second coming (Rev 19:16), when He will establish His millennial reign on earth.

Conclusion

These four offices define the essence of Christ’s ministry as well as His identity. In His role as Shepherd of the sheep all four offices were brought together perfectly. It is important to note, as well, that He imparted His model of ministry to those He discipled (John 20:21). This would suggest that ministers today should find their identity in the offices.

As Christ was sent, so He sent His future ministers (John 17:18). In particular, He called Peter to shepherd His flock, thereby imitating His ministry, with love being the principal requirement (21:15–17). Peter then transferred this shepherding model of ministry to those called to be pastors (1 Pet 5:1–4). In this way He established the bridge between the offices of the Old Testament and contemporary pastors.

The Four Offices in Today’s Pastors

The Old Testament “pastors” provide a balanced definition of pastoral identity, harmonized perfectly in Christ. Hence any confusion as to one’s pastoral identity can be sorted out by examining Jesus’ ministry, but beyond this, by examining the ministry of the four offices. Pastors, too, have been called to a prophetic, priestly, sagely, and governing role. If, as Oden puts it, the “bold intention” of Christian ministry is to combine the various Old Testament offices into a single public office,[36] how is the pastoral role to be understood?

To Be a Prophet

As a contemporary spokesman for God, a pastor is called to the following three roles.

To be God’s mouthpiece. Should not pastors today, like Old Testament prophets, sense the conviction that God is speaking through them, that they too have been moved by the Holy Spirit? Should not the people have the same expectation—that they have come to hear a word from God? Should not pastors aspire to serve as a divine conscience, much as one finds in the lives of Isaiah and Jeremiah?

As a contemporary prophet, the pastor is called to declare God’s Word (1 Cor 15:3; Gal 1:11; 1 Thess 2:13). As Chrysostom put it, “Sermons are not occasions for literary criticism, but rather a unique moment of expected divine address.”[37] Of course this is not to suggest that a pastor’s sermons are to be equated with the words of the Almighty, as if some original revelation were given to him. However, as a trustee of God’s mysteries he is to expound the Scriptures as the living Word of God. That is his “prophetic task.”[38]

To carry the Word like a burden. Like Old Testament prophets the apostles were resolute and passionate in proclaiming God’s Word. Also Paul viewed himself as a man under divine constraint. When he wrote, “Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel” (1 Cor 9:16), he was echoing those in the prophetic office who, like Jeremiah, felt compelled to preach.

Recognizing their prophetic identity, pastors today need to sense divine compulsion with their hearts like burning bones if they choose to keep His Word inside. Too often sermons become mechanical, but as Packer put it, pastors should preach each sermon as if it were their last.[39]

To bear the price. To be a prophet demands courage, for a prophet of God is called to confront the evil of his day (Amos 3:7–8). Just as prophets of old paid a high price (Isa 6:11; Jer 16; Dan 6; Hos 1–3; Hab 3:1–2) so will today’s “prophets.” This demands a bold and dauntless faith. At times pastors must have the courage to stand up, to be the conscience of the community.[40] A vote on a moral issue, a stance against a powerful, yet unethical parishioner, and a message that will be widely unpopular, yet critical for the moment, will all face today’s prophets.

The price may be as subtle but as painful as the small talk in the church foyer, which festers into a cold and distancing congregation. It may be as overt as personal attacks by a community that hates the light. Prophets were not popular in Israel, and pastors today are often not popular, especially in an environment that places a premium on comfort and soothing words.

The minister who never cries “Who is sufficient for these things?” does not understand Christ’s calling. To be entrusted with the very oracles of God, to shepherd and feed the flock of Christ, to stand before an amused or hostile world with the folly of the gospel—this is not to choose a profession; it is to choose the crucified.[41]

This challenge has led some pastors to disregard this part of their identity. Refusing to be prophets, they have become bland and indirect. The need to proclaim the Word of God and to view proclamation as an opportunity to promote spiritual change is as critical as ever. Peterson wrote, “I am convinced that we must take seriously a prophetic role for the church in our society. Woe to us, and our nation and our world—if we do not.”[42]

To Be a Priest

To declare that the pastor’s identity, in part, is sourced in the Old Testament priest may be questioned by some. Evangelicals shy from a priestly orientation, fearing that such an emphasis may encourage a pastor to create an unhealthy distinction between himself and the laity.

History argues for such concern. When leaders of the early church began to apply the term of priest to themselves, a title that reached full flower by the medieval period, the priesthood of all believers became obscured.[43] The distinction between laity and clergy was amplified by the assumption of a sacerdotal caste. This has led Grudem to warn, “To try to perpetuate such a ‘priesthood’ distinct from the rest of believers is to attempt to maintain an Old Testament institution which Christ has abolished once and for all.”[44]

Furthermore, when such an identity is fostered, some may fear that a pastor will usurp the mediatorial role of Christ—and people will look to the minister for absolution from sin rather than to Christ. “There is an entire silence about priestly functions; for the most exalted office in the Church, the highest gift of the Spirit, conveyed no sacerdotal right which was not enjoyed by the humblest member of the Christian community.”[45]

The New Testament never applies the word “priest” to ordained ministers. Instead, it notes that all believers are priests (1 Pet 2:5, 9; Rev 1:6). As Wright concludes, “There is no New Testament warrant for ascribing any special qualification of priesthood to ordained persons within the common priesthood of the church.”[46]

Yet while these concerns are legitimate, and while pastors share a priestly identity with all believers, there is a legitimate as well as essential link with the Old Testament office that must not be overlooked. Like Old Testament priests pastors are part of a formally designated and consecrated ministry, the nature of which calls for priestly acts at their deepest levels.

To come alongside. Pastors are called to come alongside, to console and comfort. Following the incarnational pattern of Christ, pastors must enter the depths of human experience, seeking to understand it.[47] That is, the “priestly” pastor is keenly sensitive to his people’s spiritual needs. And no matter how deep may be their pain, he is willing to be there with them. Under the shadow of the Old Testament priest, who empathized with his people and stood as their representative before God, the New Testament pastor stands with his congregation.

This reflects itself in several ways. First, he is called to intercede. While all believers have a responsibility to pray for each other (1 Tim 2:1–2; James 5:16), the ministry of intercession is at the very center of a pastor’s calling—what might be referred to as the central priestly act. Paul modeled this more than any minister of God, for his epistles are filled with pastoral prayers, as he interceded for the flocks God called him to shepherd (Rom 1:8–10; 2 Cor 13:7–9; Eph 1:15–23; Phil 1:3–11; Col 1:3–14; 2 Thess 1:11–12; 2 Tim 1:3–7; Phile 4–7). His letters reveal a heart that was completely and resolutely committed to people. In similar fashion, he wrote his pastoral epistles, instructing future pastors to do the same (1 Tim 2:1–2, 8).

Second, where there is sin, the pastor enters alongside, seeking to encourage reconciliation with God and with others. Tidball calls this the central thrust of ministry,[48] and it is one of the pastor’s most demanding tasks. It costs sleepless nights, great emotional energy, and the pain of potential abandonment. It also requires great intercession. The ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:19) demands nothing less than a priestly intercessory heart.

Third, where there is pain, the pastor is called to share. Where there is suffering, the priestly nature of the ministry calls for him to immerse himself here as well. While many shy away out of fear or unwillingness to face discomfort, the pastor seizes the occasion to be alongside, to hurt with those who hurt. Peterson describes pastoral work as one of “engaging” in human suffering. “The pastor who substitutes cheery bromides for this companionship ‘through the valley of deep shadows’ can fairly be accused of cowardice.”[49] It takes a degree of courage to step into a situation where a mother has lost her baby, a parent anguishes over a rebellious child, or a wife has only moments earlier received word concerning the death of her husband. By the pastor’s work, however, the church is better able to be what God has called it to be—a healing community.

To guard the worship. Like Old Testament priests, pastors ultimately bear responsibility for the service of worship. While others fulfill certain roles, from arranging flowers to organizing the choir, the pastor carries the responsibility of preserving the dignity of God’s house. He is responsible for presiding over worship services, helping others prepare to meet God.[50]

To be holy. Because pastors lead their people in worship, they must be men of integrity. Old Testament priests were to be experts on ritual purity, but they were also to maintain absolute personal holiness (Lev 11–15). Similarly pastors are to maintain not only the purity of worship but also purity in their personal lives. The office of pastor “is nothing less than a vocation to holiness.”[51] Athanasius said it well: “You cannot put straight in others what is warped in yourself.”

To bless the people. Like Old Testament priests, pastors are called to a ministry of blessing. Priests were to pronounce a benediction on the people (Num 6:22–27); this was a crucial priestly duty (cf. Lev 9:22; Deut 21:5). So too pastors are to engage in the ministry of blessing. Benedictions may be given at the close of worship services, as well as in homes. Parishioners expect pastors to carry out such an act.

To bring an offering. As a final argument for the pastor’s link with the Old Testament priest, it is worth noting that Paul used priestly language in describing himself and others. He referred to those he had come to shepherd as his “offering” to God (Rom 15:16). He alluded to himself as a “priest,” ministering the gospel of God. Paul viewed Epaphroditus as a “priest,” (λειτουργός) because of the offering he brought to Paul (Phil 2:25; 4:18). Paul viewed himself as a “libation” poured out on the sacrificial offering of the Philippians’ faith (Phil 2:17).

Pastors must be willing to view themselves at times as sacrificial victims, paying a certain price for people’s sins. When does a pastor do this? Whenever he bears up with their pain and experiences the hurt of their sin. On another occasion Paul likened himself to a poured-out drink offering (2 Tim 4:6). Using again the metaphor of a libation, Paul thought of his life as a sacrificial offering, a challenge he issued to all believers (Rom 12:1). Just as sacrifice and forgiveness were the domains in which Old Testament priests lived, so these will be the experience of pastors. The ministry of reconciliation and sympathy will enlist their highest powers.[52]

To Be a Sage

Like sages of the Old Testament, pastors are to fulfill the following roles.

To search for wisdom. A pastor is identified by his affection and passion for truth. Von Rad has noted that the essential task of the sage was to perceive truth.[53] Similarly pastors are to hunger to perceive understanding, to discern prudence. Searching for understanding, as for gold, is more than a passion. It is painstaking labor (Prov 2:1–5), but it is spurred by the conviction that wisdom is a gift imparted from above (James 1:5–6; 3:13–18). Being faithful in this search, ministers become the sages others are encouraged to seek out.

To observe life. Because the pastor is a sage, his study will never be an ivory tower, a haven to escape the demands of ministry or to run from the needs of his people. The sage was more than a person on a sapiential quest. He was committed to integrating truth with life—to deliver truth in memorable statements. This demanded he spend much time with people, studying those lives God placed before him.[54]

Pastors face the same demands. They need to be at their people’s workplace, in their homes, and on their campuses, observing and feeling life’s realities. This means knowing about a deacon’s workplace, where an insecure manager makes the office a difficult place. It calls for being with the shut-in who must rely on his tape-recorded sermons to sustain her during the week. It means sensing the fears of a professional who knows, with corporate downsizing, that his employment may be terminated tomorrow. Such firsthand experiences enable pastors to speak with greater wisdom from the pulpit.

To give wise counsel. Whether from the pulpit or in personal counseling, pastors are called to minister the practicalities of spiritual truth. The issues may range from marital conflict to discerning God’s will. “The pastor who maintains a consistent counseling ministry will move in the direction of life-situation preaching. Preaching will start where people live.”[55] The office of sage assures pastors that this role is essential to their pastoral identity. Like Solomon, pastors sometimes are asked to referee between people in conflict. “The pastor will be called upon to deal with persons facing quite different states of life crises. He must remain responsive to all the different levels and developmental stages of the life cycle. Counsel must be attentive to those developmental differences.”[56]

To live an ordered life. Fulfilling the office of sage also means that a pastor is impressed with order, and his life results in some sort of measured pattern. At the heart of the sage’s world view was a conviction that what is wise is that which is ordered. Chaos, hurry, and disorder are the antitheses of wisdom. In the sage’s view of reality, God has established an orderly universe. Man’s principal responsibility is to live in harmony with this order.[57] This comes as a result of conforming to the discipline of instruction.[58]

Such an order, described and mandated in the Old Testament wisdom books, is underscored in a concise way in James 3:17, in which James described the orderly way heavenly wisdom manifests itself. An ordered life is first and foremost, a pure life, with passions under control (Prov 5–7). An ordered life is arranged in such a way as to promote peace. When a pastor takes on the characteristics of a sage, he brings with him a spirit of conciliation (cf. 3:17) and gentleness (cf. 15:1). He is known as a mediator and a peacemaker. James also described the wise man as one who is righteous (James 3:17). Truth and kindness are the inseparable qualities of a wise person whose life is orderly.

An ordered ministry, then, is critical to a pastor’s priorities. This is crucial, for few professions have the potential to be so chaotic. Working with volunteers, who come and go, working with a schedule that is largely self-determined and interruptive, and working against a spiritual tide that will do all it can to unsettle, pastors need the model and counsel of the sage to stand their ground and pursue order.[59] Therefore the pastor’s home, his life, and his marriage must be in order.

To Be a King

Though a pastor is not called to reign over his church, he is called to three essential characteristics that were true of Israel’s rulers.

To be a leader. As a learning church needs a teacher, and a feeding church needs a pastor, so a working church needs a leader.[60] Every church must have trusted leadership. While pastors differ in their leadership styles, they must unite people toward a common goal, call people to decisions, and lovingly lead people forward (cf. Josh 24:14–24). If one is not capable of such leadership, he should not be in such a position. As Oden notes, “They are not just pastors to individuals, but to a community that hungers for a wise and useful ordering of itself.”[61] Terms like “elder” and “overseer” underscore the importance of leadership as part of pastoral identity.

Wise pastors will not override the judgment of their people by the force of their own prerogatives. Instead wise pastors recognize that authority ultimately rests with God, and that the way up is down. The godly Old Testament king realized the same truth. Pastors are not to lead in coercive ways, but must boldly guide, based on the Lord’s will and an empathetic sense of what the congregation needs. As overseers, pastors are to govern their congregations and to influence opinion.

To impart a vision. Pastors must be sensitive to the vision God is imparting. Churches look to their pastors to cast the vision. Part of pastoral identity is wrapped up in climbing the mountain, looking out over the horizon, charting the course, and collecting the people along the way.[62] Like the sons of Issachar, pastors must understand the times and know what their people must do (1 Chron 12:32).

To steward the resources. A congregation consists of redeemed people, uniquely gifted, to do some work of service (Eph 4:11–16). God has given the church pastors, so that saints might be equipped, and ministry might be accomplished.[63] Just as a king was to be a steward of Israel’s resources and called the people to action, so pastors must do the same with the churches they are called to guide. This task balances the priestly side of the pastoral role for without this engaging of members in ministry, one can assume too much ministry.[64]

To lead in battle. Just as a king was called on to lead a nation into battle, so pastors are to take the lead in spiritual conflicts. This means articulating the principles and procedures of spiritual warfare, whether that be wisely expounding Ephesians 6:10–17 or putting their lives on the line for their church.

These tasks are not easy to carry out. Just as kings faced resistance to leadership, so will pastors. Congregations, at least by words, want a pastor to be a leader. Yet when he exercises leadership, it may not always be well received. While they need to be leaders, giving vision, they will face congregations that all too often are committed to the status quo. Wise is the pastor who realizes he is called to lead and yet who works to gain the trust of his people and works hard to engage others in participating in an imparted vision.

Conclusion

The Old Testament offices provide a solid framework from which to measure pastoral identity and function. They give legitimacy to a pastor’s commitment to prepare and preach the Word, a pastor’s responsibility to pray and intercede for his people, a pastor’s need to serve as a counselor to his people, and a pastor’s task to administer and lead a church.

Though pastors’ gifts, temperament, and training will cause them to gravitate toward one identity more than the others, these four offices teach them to maintain their ministry in the church in balance. By maintaining these four areas of responsibility, a church leader functions properly as a “pastor,” or shepherd, thereby identifying himself closely with the Lord Jesus who called Himself “the good shepherd” (John 10:11, 14).

Notes

1. Richard Neuhaus, Freedom for Ministry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 38.
2. Wayne E. Oates, The Christian Pastor (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982), 129.
3. A helpful resource is H. Richard Niebuhr and Daniel D. Williams, eds., The Ministry in Historical Perspectives (New York: Harper, 1956).
4. David L. Larsen, Caring for the Flock (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1991), xi.
5. David Fisher, “A Ministry for the 21st Century,” Lecture Series, Western Baptist Seminary, January 26–30, 1993.
6. Ibid.
7. David F. Wells, No Place for Truth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 232.
8. Edward T. Oakes, “Evangelical Theology in Crisis,” First Things 36 (October 1993): 40.
9. Neuhaus, Freedom for Ministry, 40.
10. Ibid., 40-41.
11. Thomas C. Oden, Pastoral Theology (San Francisco: Harper, 1983), 5.
12. Wells, No Place for Truth, 219.
13. Eugene H. Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor (Dallas, TX: Word, 1989), 39.
14. George H. Williams, “The Ministry of the Ante-Nicene Church (c. 125–325),” in The Ministry in Historical Perspectives, 28. Williams observes that by the second century, the pastor emerged as one representing the “fullness” of ministry. Williams’s configuration matches the Old Testament offices. Speaking of the pastor’s identity, he writes, “He was prophet, teacher, chief celebrant at the liturgical assembly, and chairman of the board of overseers of the Christian synagogue” (ibid.).
15. One might also note the work of Derek Tidball, Skillful Shepherds (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 327–28. He makes the point that ministry is not monolithic, arguing for a definition of ministry as teacher, pastor, priest, and prophet.
16. Oden, Pastoral Theology, 50.
17. Oden refers to Christ as the Minister par excellence, stating, “Christ intended that our current ministries continue to embody His own ministry to the world” (ibid.).
18. Ibid., 60.
19. Fisher, “A Ministry for the 21st Century.”
20. Thomas C. Oden, The Word of Life (San Francisco: Harper, 1989), 282.
21. Gerhard von Rad, Wisdom in Israel (London: SCM, 1974), 21.
22. Louis Goldberg, “חָכָם,” in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, 1:284.
23. Bruce K. Waltke, “The Book of Proverbs and Old Testament Theology,” Bibliotheca Sacra 136 (October-December 1979): 304.
24. Ibid., 317.
25. W. Robert Cook, “Is There a Fourth ‘Office’ of Christ?” (Unpublished paper, Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, n.d.), 1.
26. Cf. Deuteronomy 18:15; 1 Samuel 3:4–14; Jeremiah 1:5; Amos 2:11. The Hebrew נָביא is linked with the Akkadian nabium, “a called one.”
27. Douglas Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, TX: Word, 1987), xxxii.
28. J. Barton Payne, The Theology of the Older Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1962), 373.
29. Thomas Oden, Ministry through Word and Sacrament (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 58.
30. John G. Gammie and Leo G. Perdue, eds., The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), ix.
31. Payne, The Theology of the Older Testament, 55.
32. Eugene H. Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 166.
33. Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 2 vols. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), 1:113.
34. Oden, The Word of Life, 285.
35. John F. Walvoord, Jesus Christ Our Lord (Chicago: Moody, 1969), 137.
36. Oden, Pastoral Theology, 86-87.
37. Cited in Oden, Ministry through Word and Sacrament, 37.
38. Oden, Pastoral Theology, 86.
39. J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1990), 288.
40. Oden, Pastoral Theology, 139.
41. James D. Berkeley, ed., Leadership Handbooks of Practical Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 1:15.
42. Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work, 159.
43. John R. W. Stott, One People (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1968), 28–29.
44. Wayne Grudem, 1 Peter (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 101. Tidball’s warning is appropriate here: “The pastor who puts himself above his fellows and has an over grand conception of his responsibility will spend most of his ministry suffering from fatigue and seeing other people as a burden or a problem” (Skillful Shepherds, 35).
45. J. B. Lightfoot, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians (London: Macmillan, 1873), 184.
46. D. F. Wright, “Priesthood of all Believers,” in New Dictionary of Theology, ed. Sinclair B. Ferguson and J. I. Packer (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1988), 531.
47. Oden, Pastoral Theology, 90.
48. Tidball, Skillful Shepherds, 330.
49. Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work, 136.
50. Oden, Pastoral Theology, 90.
51. Neuhaus, Freedom for Ministry, 210.
52. Washington Gladden, The Christian Pastor and the Working Church (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1906), 61. “No matter what view [a pastor] may take of his office, the real value of his service to his people will be found in his personal and spiritual, rather than in his formal and ecclesiastical relations to them. His usefulness among them will be due not to any powers by which he is elevated above them or separated from them, but to a character which in the fullest sense he shares with them” (ibid.).
53. Von Rad, Wisdom in Israel, 22.
54. Ibid., 309.
55. Oates, Wisdom in Israel, 148.
56. Thomas C. Oden, Pastoral Counsel (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 129.
57. Roy B. Zuck, “A Theology of the Wisdom Books and the Song of Songs,” in A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament, ed. Roy B. Zuck (Chicago: Moody, 1991), 217–19.
58. Leo G. Perdue, “Cosmology and the Social Order in the Wisdom Tradition,” in The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East, 458.
59. Neuhaus offers a powerful warning against “acedia,” the tendency to dawdle away the time in chaotic ministry (Freedom for Ministry, 227).
60. Gladden, The Christian Pastor and the Working Church, 62.
61. Oden, Pastoral Theology, 154.
62. Darius Salter, What Really Matters in Ministry (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 78.
63. A. Duane Litfin, “The Nature of the Pastoral Role: The Leader as Completer,” Bibliotheca Sacra 139 (January-March 1982): 57-66.
64. Tidball, Skillful Shepherds, 170.