I’ve just finished a quarter century of preaching. We moved to North Carolina in May of 1982 . . . to Arkansas in September of 1984 . . . and to Texas in August of 1991.
Most of those years I’ve been in pretty visible pulpits — the College Church in Searcy and Highland.
But there was a real joy in that first ministry, too. It was off the beaten path. I preached to 140 wonderful people on the coast of NC.
And today I’m thinking of the many faithful people who serve as ministers (preachers, youth ministers, campus ministers, children’s ministers, etc.) in places that most never hear about. Rarely are they invited to speak at lectureships. No one is going to them asking them to write a book.
And yet month after month, year after year, and (sometimes) decade after decade they continue to minister faithfully.
For many of them, there is no multiple staff to share responsibilities with. There is not much time away. But there is still great joy.
Large churches grab most of the headlines. But small churches — places of deep fellowship and vibrant mission — are just as vital.
This morning I’m giving thanks for the many faithful ministers (I know, I know — we’re all ministers — but you know what I mean) scattered in these important places.
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Luke Timothy Johnson takes on the diversity of the gospel testimonies about Jesus. What do we do once we recognize it?
One option is to pretend the diversity isn’t there, attempting to collapse all the voices into one harmonized gospel.
Another option is to see only the diversity so that you’re unable to read all the witnesses as reliable.
But there is another possibility:
“Or will [those who notice the diversity] recognize that each of the compositions — human interpretations of a person whose life, death, and resurrection far exceeded the normal categories of human experience — has genuine value as testimony to some particular facet of Jesus, but none of them alone (nor all of them together) adequately or comprehensively captures the living reality that is Jesus?
“I choose the last option. I approach these writings as thoroughly human in their composition — and therefore necessarily limited in the ways all human writings are limited — but also as inspired by the Holy Spirit of Jesus himself — and therefore able to speak truly within their limited perspective and comprehension. I assume that none of these writings tell us everything that we would like to know . . . but that each of them individually speaks truly as it is able and all of them taken together speak reliably concerning the person in whose name they were written. I make no apology for this decision, and I gladly recognize that it is a decision based upon a prior conviction of faith. But if I did not start from such a faith, it is difficult to understand why I would be seeking to learn Jesus in this personal fashion anyway.” (Living Jesus
, 79f)
