Truth
On
Tough
Texts
ISSUE 18 –
January/2007
Is There a
So-Called “Call” to
Ministry?
Ephesians 4:11; I Timothy
3:1
BEFORE
COMING TO OUR CURRENT PLACE OF SERVICE IN JUNE OF 1986,
MY WIFE AND I WERE in a traveling ministry of music and
preaching for four years. It was during that time that I
occasionally heard the statement, “There’s no such thing
as God’s ‘inward call’ to the ministry; that whole
concept is nothing more than a person’s subjective
feeling.” Once in a while someone would even add,
“Anyone can be in the ministry simply if they choose to
be.”
Some twenty years later,
however, that once infrequent statement has now been
transformed into a full-blown teaching that is being
propagated by many evangelical leaders. A growing number
insist that “the call” is only outward. As one writer
puts it:
This call may be the call
of the congregation to the pastorate, or the call of the
representative Church to the mission field or to
professorships in a theological seminary, or executive
offices in the Church, or to any other work in which the
Church may be engaged, or which it may find it necessary
to perform. . . .[i]
We’ll come back to that
statement and quote another by the same teacher a little
later, but the result of such a view, as I hope to show,
is not only a departure from clear biblical teaching and
historical precedent but is also a serious weakening of
the Church by putting people in leadership who do not
belong there.
The Biblical
Teaching
Does the Bible teach an
inward call to ministry?
First, there
is a sense in which all believers are called “to
ministry.” The word “call” is kaleo
or kaleomai.
Basically, these speak of an “invitation,” but more
specifically “a summons.” A call, therefore, is not
just a request; it is a demand. Of course,
all the elect are called (summoned) to salvation (Rom.
8:30; I Pet. 2:9; etc.). Further, however,
all believers are called to
ministry (service). For example, I Peter 1:15 and II
Peter 1:3 say we are called (summoned) to virtue and
holy living. Likewise, I Peter 3:9, says we are called
(summoned) to be a blessing to others, which is another
way of saying we are to minister to (serve)
others.
Second,
however, it is essential to recognize that there is what
is called “the call to the ministry,” that is, God’s call to what has been termed
“full-time ministry,” that is, as one’s vocation. Is
this “subjective,” as goes the accusation? Of
course it is because it is what God is doing in a man’s
heart and mind to compel him to the ministry, but that
doesn’t prove that it doesn’t exist. As we’ll see, this
is the precedent we see throughout Scripture.
It is also insisted
that any kind of ministry is simply one’s personal
choice, but we humbly and categorically disagree because
that simply is not the biblical precedent. Nowhere in
Scripture is this a man’s choice; it is always God’s
choice alone. Yes, a local church is to train and
ordain men to the ministry and thereby show that
it recognizes their call and
qualifications. But the actual
call is God’s and He works it out between Himself and
His servants. Let’s consider two
points.
First, we see
this doctrinally in Ephesians 4:11: And he
[Christ] gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and
some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers.
That
verse, of course, lists four “office gifts” that have
been given to the Church (the first two, which have
passed away, and the two that replaced them). The words
He gave are pivotal. The Greek here includes an
“intensive pronoun” (autos edoken) that yields the literal idea “He Himself
gave,” that is, He and no one else. In
other words, these offices are given by God alone, not
by the Church, not by a school, not even by the person
who wants to fill an office. Again, the common attitude
today is that anyone can say, “I want to teach,” and is
then qualified to teach. While such willingness is
commendable, it does not qualify. As none of the
Apostles appointed themselves but were chosen by Christ,
neither does any man appoint himself to any of these
offices. As one commentator aptly puts it, “The Jesus
Who ascended—this, and none other, is the sovereign
donor. The provider and bestower are one in the
same.”[ii] It
is Christ alone Who calls to ministry.
This principle is even
more graphic in I Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:6-8,
where there are twenty-four qualifications a man must
meet to hold the office of Pastor (Bishop and Elder).
The
key to
understanding I Timothy 3:1-7 is that the
qualifications Paul lists are set against the backdrop
of the unqualified leaders in Ephesus. Some interpreters
view these qualifications as “the ideal”; that is, no
one can measure up to all of them so we must simply find
as many as possible in each person. Such a view is
obviously erroneous because the text neither says
nor even implies such an idea. What Paul does
here is place God’s standards against what the Ephesians
had allowed the leadership to degenerate into in the
approximately six years since he had written the
Ephesian letter to them. As one commentator summarizes,
“Some of the leaders were teaching false doctrine (I
Tim. 1:3; 4:1–3, 7; 6:3–5), turning aside to ‘fruitless
discussion’ (1:6), they misused the law, and
misunderstood the gospel (1:7–11). Some were women
(2:12), though that was forbidden by God’s Word [which
Paul notes early in the letter, 2:11-12]. Others were
guilty of sin, and needed public rebuke
(5:20).”[iii]
He, therefore, says,
“Here is what you must look for. If a man does not have
these qualities, he is not qualified to lead”—period.
These are not “the ideal”— they are the standard.
The problems we see in
Christianity today—the redefining of the Gospel, the
“seeker-sensitive” movement, the
entertainment-orientation of ministry, the Relativism
and Pragmatism that rule all aspects of Church life, and
so on—all come, in part, from the breakdown of
leadership, which in-turn comes from putting people
in leadership who Biblically should not be there. As
Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it, “It is largely because the
true conception of the work of a minister has become so
debased that the ministry has lost its authority and
counts so little at the present time.”[iv]
To illustrate, it is
noteworthy that when one goes back in Church History, he
finds that pastors were great theologians, and when they
spoke people listened. Was that because of their
authority? No, it was because Scripture
alone was their authority,
and they were there because they were called, qualified,
trained, and ordained to be there. In stark contrast,
today we find very few theologians in the pulpit, and
anyone who wants to be “in the ministry” is permitted to
be. We have hundreds of voices saying thousands of
things, we have mega-churches doing whatever they want,
we have celebrities with their own television shows, and
we have every “Church program” under the sun. As a
result, the ministry means virtually nothing anymore.
One voice is just as good as another because the Word of
God is simply not the final authority for all we
believe, think, say, and do.
So again, Paul,
therefore, gives Timothy (and Titus) specific
requirements for leadership. Out of a total of
twenty-four, there are fourteen character
requirements, four social and family
requirements, five spiritual requirements, and
one vocational requirement for those who are to
fill the office of Pastor (also Bishop and Elder—we’ll
examine these three terms next month). It is that
vocational requirement that is at the root of
Church leadership. We use the word “vocational” here in
a stronger sense than it is often used today. Webster
tells us that this is “an impulse to enter a certain
career.” So, the word means more than most people think.
In truth, as Webster indicates, a
vocation is that to which one
is totally dedicated, that for which he has a passion,
that which he does because he cannot even imagine doing
anything else.
While the list of
qualifications in I Timothy 3:1-7 doesn’t
grammatically begin until the word “then” in
verse 2, contextually speaking verse 1 also
speaks of a qualification: This is a true saying, If
a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good
work. Oh, how this verse has been abused! The word
desire has been twisted to mean that anyone can
preach or teach as a “side-line” just because he “wants
to.” But the Greek words behind desire and
desireth say something quite different.
Desire is orego,
which means “to stretch.” One Greek authority tells us:
“to stretch one’s self out in order to grasp something;
to reach after or desire something.”[v] Another adds that
metaphorically the idea is to “long after, try to gain,
be ambitious (in a benign manner).”[vi] So this means far
more than what we usually mean by desire. It
speaks of a deep longing, a complete disregard for all
else. This is exactly what the call to the ministry is:
a desire to preach that disregards all else one could
do. There is in this a sense of
constraint; one can do nothing else. How well Charles
Spurgeon said it in one of his lectures to pastoral
students:
In order to [be] a true
call to the ministry there must be an irresistible,
overwhelming craving and raging thirst for telling to
others what God has done to our own souls . . . “Do not
enter the ministry if you can help it,” was the
deeply sage advice of a divine to one who sought his
judgment. If any student in this room could be content
to be a newspaper editor, or lawyer, or a grocer, or a
farmer, or a doctor, or a senator, or a king, in the
name of heaven and earth let him go his way; he is not
the man in whom dwells the Spirit of God in its fulness,
for a man so filled with God would utterly weary of any
pursuit but that for which his inmost soul
pants.[vii]
In other words,
if a man can do anything else and be satisfied with
it, and have peace in it, then he is not called to
preach. Spurgeon goes on to
describe the full extent of such a
desire:
This desire should be one
which continues with us, a passion which bears
the test of trial, a longing from which it is quite
impossible for us to escape, though we may have tried to
do so; a desire, in fact, which grows more intense by
the lapse of years, until it becomes a yearning, a
pining, a famishing to proclaim the Word.[viii]
Anecdotes do not
constitute Truth, but if I may interject a personal
example, I did not start out to be a preacher—no way. I
was headed for another vocation entirely, a surgeon. The
ministry was not my plan, but it was God’s. He called me
to the ministry and put within me that compulsion. We
find the same story of men throughout Scripture (e.g.,
Jeremiah; 20:9) and throughout Church History.
Now notice the word
desireth, which translates
epithumeo,
“to long after, to have a passionate compulsion.” This
word often speaks of something bad and lustful, but the
word “good” and the surrounding context make it clear
that this is for good rather than for evil. In contrast
to orego,
(which
doesn’t imply inner motive only outward pursuit)
this verb refers to the inward feeling of desire.
Taken together, then, the two terms describe the man
who pursues the ministry outwardly because of a driving
compulsion inwardly.
That is the call
to ministry.
Second, we
see this proven practically everywhere we look.
It was true of the Apostle Paul, for example. Second
Corinthians 5 is about the compulsion of the ministry.
In verse 14 he declares: “The love of Christ
constraineth us.” Even more pointed is I Corinthians
9:16, where Paul writes, “Necessity is laid upon me;
yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!”
This kind of desire transcends mere human desire; it
is placed by God; it is given according to His
grace. This is not any man’s
idea, not something that he desires before the call, not
something he chooses to do because it iss as good as
anything else. Rather, it iss something God does in a
man’s life, and that man can do nothing else. If a man
does what Scripture demands of him, a mere human
desire will fade, just as we see increasingly
today.
We see this
principle throughout Scripture for men God called to
preach. Not only does it describe God’s calling of
several prophets (e.g., Jer. 1:1-10; Ezek. 2:1-3; Jonah
1:1-3), it also records the calling of Jesus’ disciples
by the Lord Jesus Himself (e.g., Matt. 4:18-22; cf. Mk.
1:16-20; Lk. 5:1-111; Jn. 1:35-42). While the specific
call of each one is not recorded, Matthew 10:5 specifies
that “these twelve Jesus sent forth,” emphasizing Jesus’
sole power to call and commission. Luke 9:1-2 goes
further to say, “Then he called his twelve disciples
together, and gave them power and authority over all
devils, and to cure diseases. And he sent
them to preach the kingdom of
God” (emphasis added).
At this point, some insist that
such examples were only for that time when God called
directly and not for today. But such a position is not
only inconsistent, it is also dangerous because it
clearly implies that biblical precedent (on any issue)
is meaningless.
Another key verse is
Hebrew 5:4: “And no man taketh this honour unto himself,
but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.” This verse,
of course, speaks of God’s calling of the Old Testament
priest, but the picture is no less graphic—God calls His
servants.
A very unpopular
application arises at this point, namely, that God’s
calling immediately and fundamentally implies that not
just anyone can preach, which is the exact opposite of
modern opinion. Why? Because not just anyone can
disregard all else to fill that office and then
fulfill its responsibilities. A preacher is
called of God to preach and does nothing
else. Many, if not most, people
today believe in “lay-preachers,” “laypastors,” and
“lay-elders.” But these simply do not match the
Scripture, no matter how one tries to justify them.
Preaching and teaching the Scripture takes the
majority of a man’s time to prepare for; it is not
something that can be done as a “sideline.”
Many disagree with
that, but please think of it this way: would any of us
want a surgeon to operate on us simply because he had
read a couple books on how to perform surgery (perhaps
one titled, General Surgery for
Dummies)? Anyone, in
fact, could ask the same question of their vocation,
such as this: “Could just anyone walk into my office and
say, ‘Well, I read a couple of books on your job, so I
think I can do it as well as you?’” How ridiculous, and
if we may be frank, how arrogant! But this is precisely
what many do with teaching the Bible. They think that
just a little time in the Word, such as reading their
Sunday School lesson or reading a couple of
commentaries, qualifies them to preach and teach. How
tragically wrong (not to mention dangerous) that is!
Yes, a pastor has many duties, but the majority of his
time must be invested in the study of the Word and
prayer so he can adequately prepare to feed God’s
people. We submit, if this isn’t a man’s attitude, he
does not belong in a pulpit. Martyn Lloyd-Jones comments
on “lay-preaching” in his classic book, Preaching and
Preachers:
What is the ultimate
criticism of what is called ‘lay-preaching?’ The answer
comes to this, that it seems to miss completely the
whole notion of a ‘call.’ There are also other reasons.
. . . My main argument is that the picture I have given
of the preacher, and what he is doing, insists not only
that this is something to which a man is called,
but also something that should occupy the whole of his
time apart from exceptional circumstances. It is not
something which can be done as an aside, as it were;
that is a wrong approach and a wrong attitude to
it.[ix]
The teacher I quoted at
the beginning of this article adds this statement, which
demonstrates a serious error: “The so-called inner call
is due to Calvinistic or Reformed influence.” Shouldn’t
such a statement greatly trouble us? Does it not clearly
attack the basic underlying doctrine of the sovereignty
of God? Are we to think that a sovereign God leaves the
whole matter up to men to decide who will preach? Is
this the only area in which God is not
sovereign?
The same teacher
again objects to the “inward call” based upon the idea
that it “[divides] the Church into two classes, the
clergy and the laity.” Now I must choose my next words
very carefully, for I do not want to be misunderstood.
Yes, Roman Catholicism (and even Protestantism) have
created an artificial and destructive hierarchy of
“clergy and laity,” but we should also recognize that
there is a difference between a shepherd
and a sheep—shepherds are to lead and sheep are
to follow, and God does call certain men to be
shepherds. Some folks really bristle at the word
“layman,” but that word is neither an insult nor a term
that implies inferiority. How many of us, for example,
have heard a doctor first describe a medical condition
with half a dozen ten-syllable words and then say, “Now
to the layman, here’s the problem”? Webster, in fact,
defines layman as “a person who does not belong
to a particular profession or who is not expert in some
field.” That is all the word
means in this context. As I would be a layman when it
comes to the vocations of the men in my church, so is
each one of them a layman when it comes to my vocation.
Many people today
still react to this by saying, “You just think you are
part of an elite group. Or maybe it iss just that you’re
proud and don’t want to share the glory with anyone
else.” On the contrary, one of the main reasons we make
this so clear is for their own protection. As
James declares, “My brethren, be not many masters [i.e.,
didaskalos, teachers],
knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation”
(Jas. 3:1). Here is a serious warning that seems to be
overlooked by many today. Such would-be teachers,
whether a Sunday School teacher, lay-preacher, or other
teaching position, have no idea what responsibility they
take on when they presume to teach the Scripture. Every
person who takes on that task will give an account of it
and will be strictly judged for it. James is telling us,
“Be warned! Don’t take this on unless God has called you
and you have been properly trained for
it.”
As a pastor, this
principle hits me every time I sit down to study in
preparation for preaching and teaching. I will answer
for what I teach, and it is for that reason that I spend
so many hours in study. There are times when I will
spend hours, or even days, on one verse, or even a
single word, because I want to get it right.
The above attitude
of the ministry being a “glorious profession” also shows
a total misunderstanding of the ministry. If a man
preaches the pure, unaltered Truth, especially in our
modern pragmatic, relativistic society, the last
thing he will receive is glory;
rather he will experience resistance, rebellion, and
even rage from many, if not most,
hearers.
So once again, we
are brought back to a distinct call of God, which takes
place between Him and His servants. We see once more
that this was true of Paul, as Luke records in Acts
13:2: “As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the
Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the
work whereunto I have called them” (emphasis added).
Calling is not the
end, only the beginning of a long journey. A man must
secondly be tested according to the qualifications for
leadership (I Tim. 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9), thirdly be
trained in doctrine and practice (I Tim. 3:6; II Tim.
2:2), fourthly be ordained by other leaders (Acts
14:21-25; I Tim. 4:14; 5:22; Titus 1:5;) and then
finally be sent forth by the Church (Acts 13:2-3). In
other words, his call must be confirmed by others and
then nurtured into use. But at
the very foundation is the irresistible call of God in
his life.
The
Historical Testimony
As I scoured my library on
this issue, a very interesting (and troubling) pattern
emerged. While older theologians and commentators
consistently recognize the biblical principle of the
inward call, most contemporary writers either deny the
inward call outright or, more often, simply don’t
mention the issue at all, as if it is not important
enough to deal with. John Calvin, for example, wrote in
the 16th Century of “that secret call of
which every minister is conscious before God.”[x] A century later, the great
theologian Francis Turretin wrote:
The [internal call] is
that by which the heart itself is excited by God to
consecrate itself to the work of the ministry (of which
Paul speaks in 1 Tim. 3:1). . . . By it, a man is
conscious before God that he is impelled to undertake
this office not by ambition or avarice or any other
carnal affection, but from a sincere love of God and a
desire to build up the church.[xi]
About another century
later the great expositor and theologian John Gill
wrote:
There must be a call to
the ministry of the Word, both inward and outward,
previous to this office; no man, under the law,
took to himself the honour of the priest’s office, but
he that was called of God, as was Aaron, Heb. 5:4, 5.
Nor ought any man to take upon him the office of a
prophet, or minister of the word, without a call; there
were some in the times of Jeremiah, complained of by the
Lord, who were not sent nor spoken to by him; and yet
prophesied, Jer. 23:21.[xii]
Space does not permit us
to cite others here,[xiii] but thankfully, there are
also some contemporary Christian leaders who agree. One
asks, “How important is the assurance of a special
call?”
The work of the ministry
is too demanding and difficult for a man to enter it
without a sense of divine calling. Men enter and then
leave the ministry usually because they lack a sense of
divine urgency. Nothing less than a definite call from
God could ever give a man success in the
ministry.[xiv]
Indeed, what man who
has been in the ministry for twenty years cannot
remember times when he would have quit if it had not
been for the fact that God called him to the ministry
no matter what? Another
writes:
A man who is called to the
ministry has an internal desire so strong that it
motivates him toward external pursuit of that goal. His
desire to minister is so strong that he doesn’t have any
other option. Ministry is his consuming passion, and he
pursues preparation and qualification for that
task.[xv]
Still another writes this
excellent summary:
The call of God to
vocational ministry is different from God’s call to
salvation and His call to service issued to all
Christians. It is a call to selected men to serve as
leaders in the church. To serve in such leadership
capacities, recipients of this call must have assurance
that God has so selected them. A realization of this
assurance rests on four criteria, the first of which is
a confirmation of the call by others and by God through
the circumstances of providing a place of ministry. The
second criteria is the possession of abilities necessary
to serve in leadership capacities. The third consists of
a deep longing to serve in the ministry. The final
qualification is a lifestyle characterized by moral
integrity. A man who fulfills these four qualifications
can rest in the assurance that God has called him to
vocational service.[xvi]
While we rejoice in
those statements, and some others we could cite, for the
most part the Church is drifting away from this biblical
and historical position, and she is reaping the tragic
consequences. I would submit, therefore, that Christian
leaders who reject the principle of God’s sovereign,
inward calling of men to His service are (whether
knowingly or unknowingly) aligning themselves with a
distinctly modern trend, a trend
that is eroding biblical leadership.
Dr. J. D. Watson
Pastor-Teacher
Grace Bible Church
NOTES
[i]
C. H. Little, D.D., S.T.D, Disputed Doctrines: A
Study in Biblical and Dogmatic Theology (The Lutheran Literary Board,
1933).
[ii] John Eadie, A
Commentary on the Greek Text of the Epistle of Paul to
the Ephesians (Wipf and Stock
Publishers, 1998; reprint of 2nd Edition, 1861), p.
297.
[iii] John MacArthur,
New Testament Commentary: I Timothy (Moody, 1995).
[iv] D. Martyn
Lloyd-Jones, The Unsearchable Riches of
Christ (Baker), p.
53.
[v] Joseph Thayer,
Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon (Hendrickson), p. 452.
[vi] Zodhiates, The
Complete Word Study Dictionary: NT (AMG Publishers), p.
1056.
[vii] C. H. Spurgeon,
Lectures To My Students
(Zondervan, 1974), pp. 26-27 (emphasis in the
original).
[viii] Ibid, p. 28 (emphasis in
the original).
[ix] D. Martyn
Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers (Zondervan, 1972), p. 103. This work is highly
recommended. It quickly and cuttingly goes to the heart
and speaks of what the ministry is and how it’s been
perverted in recent history.
[x]
Institutes (Beveridge
translation), IV, iii, 11
[xi] Francis Turretin,
Institutes of Elenctic Theology (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1997),
Vol. 3, p. 215.
[xii] John Gill, A
Complete Body of Doctrinal and Practical
Divinity (The Baptist Standard
Bearer, 1995 reprint of the 1839 edition), p.
866.
[xiii] E.g., William Ames,
William Perkins, Robert L. Dabney, Louis Berkof, and
others.
[xiv] Howard F. Sugden
and Warren W. Wiersbe, When Pastors Wonder
How (Moody, 1973), p.
9.
[xv] John MacArthur,
New Testament Commentary: I Timothy (3:1).
[xvi] James M. George,
chapter 6, “The Call to the Ministry,” in John
MacArthur, Richard Mayhue, and Robert Thomas (editors),
Rediscovering Pastoral Ministry (W Publishing Group, 1995), p.
102.
