Packer on preaching
Theocentric Preaching has posted a fine quote from J. I. Packer on the threat of losing the biblical gospel.
Update: After reading Dr. Packer's post, a reader asks in the comments section here: what exactly does it mean to "give glory to God." Thoughts?
Update: After reading Dr. Packer's post, a reader asks in the comments section here: what exactly does it mean to "give glory to God." Thoughts?
posted by Milton Stanley at 6:22 PM
8 Comments:
A very good and true quote, Milton. Thanks.
I have a genuine question. I grew up hyper-conservative Lutheran and now I'm a Methodist (and I'll own up to being fairly liberal by American Christian standards). I've heard people saying similar things about the central point of being a Christian is to "give glory to God" but I never understand what people mean by it. What does "giving glory to God" look like in practice?
To me, "the real Gospel" is something like "The Kingdom of God is at hand (because of the death and resurrection of Jesus)". Or maybe "You are forgiven and, in consequence, you are now free to repent".
There are times when doing God's will is difficult but what I've found is that when I started learning to surrender my life to God I did - shock! horror! - feel a lot happier about my life.
I hear a lot of Christians criticising "feeling good" and I hear this "glory to God" stuff a lot, but I honestly don't know what people are trying to communicate by it.
I'd like to ask that question as a "self-avowed liberal" who dares to ask that question here because I seem to have been made welcome and treated well here. I ask the question with all respect and am not looking for an argument. It's just that this sounds like jargon to me and I have no idea what people are calling others to do in practice. (And I'll unpack my "Kingdom of God" jargon in return if others want.)
Glad you thought so, Jim. Peace.
Pam: Excellent question, and I'm very glad you feel welcome here. I try not to give this place either a conservative or liberal flavor. As a consequence, I suspect some "conservatives" find it "liberal" and vice-versa. In any case, the question of glorifying God should be one that transcends partisan positions.
Your question on what glorifying God looks like in practice is one I struggle with, too. I think I struggle primarily because it's so counter-natural to even think in terms of glorifying God. Even if we are worldly minded, we can still understand the general concepts of being faithful, moral, and obedient. But giving glory? To understand that concept much at all requires Kingdom thinking. And I'll admit that in my case Kingdom-oriented thinking is coming along slowly. In any case, I'll try to answer the question. The answer, I think, is multivalent.
At the simplest level, we give glory to God through obedience and right action. This is a concept that even the Pharisees understood See, for example, John 9:24, where the term "Give glory to God" seems to be used in the sense of "Tell the truth."
At another level, we glorify God through our weakness. This is the kind of thing Paul talks about in 1 Cor. 1 & 2 and 2 Cor. 4, where the weakness of God's servants points up the power of God's Word and Spirit. Of course weakness itself is not the point. It is weakness in faith and dependence, just like a newborn baby who brings attention, so to speak, to the loving service of his mother.
In a gospel context (re. John 5:44; 12:43), glory is equated with approbation and honor. In that respect, we give glory to God when we appreciate and cause others to appreciate God's holiness and love. The church, of course, does this by living lives of love, gratitude, and humble service. To have those attitudes in our hearts, we must have a life-changing appeciation of and focus on the cross.
Fundamentally, glory is light. God's glory is intrinsic to God. Whenever we are faithful, obedient, and loving in the name of Christ, we allow God's light to shine through us. Probably the best way we do that is to truly love one another (re. John 13:35). That kind of love, of course, is not sentimentality or niceness, but is rather hard-headed kindness in action.
This is the best I can do at this point, I'm afraid, and I don't feel like I've done more than skimmed the surface.
Now, Pam, I'd like to hear your thoughts (and those of other readers, too).
Peace.
Pam: I think my last comment was a little too theoretical to answer your question. I've gone back and read Packer's quote and have some more ideas.
Ministers are under a lot of pressure to make people feel good. For example, when I was a part-time hospital chaplain I was sometimes called to the bedside of a dying man or woman who hadn't shown the least interest in the Kingdom of God for decades. Yet in every case the family seemed to want me to assure them their loved one was going to heaven. It would have been cold and wrong for me to say that they weren't, but it would not give glory to God if I had.
In the congregation itself, many, many Christians want the preacher to coddle or at least comfort them. There is, of course, a time to do this. More often, however, I preach repentance: the decadence of Western culture, the foolishness of spending more time watching TV than serving the saints; the need to give up pornography and sexual sin; the cultural wickedness of capitalism and consumption; the cancer of entertainment-oriented culture.
From a more pastoral angle, I've had to confront Christians and call them to repentance when they were getting drunk, using dope, and living together outside marriage. None of these situations made me or them feel good. It was awkward, painful, and temporarily disruptive of the nice, friendly atmosphere of the church. But only by facing these sins and coming to true repentance was God glorified.
Christians aren't called to be comfortable or nice. We're called to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Jesus.
Now, Pam, I'd like to hear your thoughts
Hmmm. Well, as I said, I’ve never really understood what people meant when they said it, so I’m rather a beginner at thinking about this.
To be honest, when I hear the “religious jargon” preached without it being illustrated practically, what I very often tend to think – no matter what the religious jargon being used is – “Oh, the preacher is talking about sex”. One preacher I know really did have one sermon and it was always about “fighting Satan’s temptation” and that’s all I could think he meant – sexual temptation – because he never, ever gave a practical example of what it was we were supposed to be "fighting".
At the simplest level, we give glory to God through obedience and right action.
OK, that’s – as you say – simple and straightforward. And, it seems to me, this would be a good thing to say in a sermon about “How we give God glory – or not”. The concept is straightforward. Achieving a life of “obedience and right action” I would say would be the work of a lifetime – although I tend to be rather scrupulous in this matter.
At another level, we glorify God through our weakness.
This, I think, is a stunning insight. Reading that was a bit of an “ah hah” moment for me and I need time to process that. That seems right. This is a lesson that I’m only just learning – that God works through our weakness. It is actually incredibly difficult to “be weak” and it’s also a message a lot of Christians don’t like to hear.
The combination of (obedience & right action) + (weakness) reminds me of an insight that I have recently stumbled across (Credit: Bonhoeffer, Cornelius Plantinga and James Alison) that at the heart of discipleship is accepting ourselves as sinners who are saved. Plantinga says “The heart of sin is…the persistent refusal to tolerate a sense of sin, to take responsibility for one’s sin, to live with the sorrowful knowledge of it and to pursue the painful way of repentance.” ( Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin)
In a gospel context (re. John 5:44; 12:43), glory is equated with approbation and honor. In that respect, we give glory to God when we appreciate and cause others to appreciate God's holiness and love.
I can think of this in terms of the Wesleyan concept of Christian Perfection as “perfection in love”. “God’s holiness” is a concept that has been tainted for me by years of hearing people insist that God causes thousands to die in earthquakes and we are not to question that because of God’s holiness (I don’t believe this theology, but it’s what I hear when I hear the word “holiness”.)
The church, of course, does this by living lives of love, gratitude, and humble service. To have those attitudes in our hearts, we must have a life-changing appeciation of and focus on the cross.
I can get totally on board with that.
Fundamentally, glory is light. God's glory is intrinsic to God. Whenever we are faithful, obedient, and loving in the name of Christ, we allow God's light to shine through us. Probably the best way we do that is to truly love one another (re. John 13:35). That kind of love, of course, is not sentimentality or niceness, but is rather hard-headed kindness in action.
I can get on board with most of that as well although I cringe at “hard-headed kindness” because I’ve had way to much “hard heartedness” in church. (I do note you said "head" and not "heart".)
I think I tend to think of God as insistent on the Truth and that, when we rebel from God and Truth (God as Truth) we can end up hurting ourselves as a consequence of our choices. I confess to having a hard time with a God who deliberately sets out to hurt people in order “to teach them a lesson”.
Ministers are under a lot of pressure to make people feel good. For example, when I was a part-time hospital chaplain I was sometimes called to the bedside of a dying man or woman who hadn't shown the least interest in the Kingdom of God for decades. Yet in every case the family seemed to want me to assure them their loved one was going to heaven. It would have been cold and wrong for me to say that they weren't, but it would not give glory to God if I had.
Thank you for that post and it’s something I’ll think about. I confess to believing in a hell, but I believe in hell because I believe in free will. I don’t think I could assuredly tell a non-believer that they were going to hell any more than I could assuredly tell them that they were going to heaven. I don’t mean that as a “kindness thing”, I mean it genuinely as “I don’t know”.
I have to say that, in my journeys around the internet, with people condemning “feeling good”, I do get the impression that they think that there is something especially holy about choosing to feel bad. I think where I might agree with standing against a “feel good lifestyle” is that we, in the West, seem to think that we can fill the holes in our lives with consumer goods rather than with God and discipleship. The problem is that Christians don’t really seem to have a different lifestyle from “the world” and a lot of Christians don’t seem to be particularly worried that people are dying in other parts of the world because of our greed (and I have to convict myself in this regard as well).
Pam, I seldom write long comments in the comments section. Today I did, and you gave them thoughtful attention and comment. Thanks. I especially appreciate the last sentence of your 7:05 PM comment; it really nails a major problem that Christians of every variety just don't seem to want to consider. Peace.
Pam, I seldom write long comments in the comments section. Today I did, and you gave them thoughtful attention and comment.
I appreciate that, thank you. I did find your comments helpful and thought-provoking.
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