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Faith Punch

My sister was 39 years old when she passed away five years ago. Two months after they discovered the cancer, it was all over. Her life had many joys, but puzzling anxieties consumed her, and in those last two months she recognized her ingratitude for the blessings in her life. However, this is also her redemption, because in the short time she had left, she found assurance of salvation, forgiveness for those who hurt her, and repentance for her failures.

Her passing is probably the saddest experience of my life. I was 15 when I decided to stop torturing her and start protecting her, but I was never able to fulfill this obligation. Too far away, too late, too distracted, too poor, too shackled. Yet, my efforts were fruitful; because of them, I was with her in the end, and she allowed me to speak into her life, to help guide her to that assurance of salvation, forgiveness, and repentance.

It is easy to remember only the very end, which is why I am glad a few of us connect to reminisce on the happy moments. This year, we are attempting something craftsy to remember her, and I did a poem. I remember her punches! Despite being so small, she was very strong! When I teased her, she would throw a quick punch that would take my breath away, all in good fun. She did not realize her own strength.

Though this poem may not mean much to you, I hope it leads you to recall with fondness those who have passed, both their struggles and their strengths.

Faith Punch

A Faith punch, her boxing about
A beauty that strikes, her craving deprived
A hunger for love, fury confounded
A toilsome joy, grinding life
A way within, always without
A one to share, more to strive
A bite of bread, baked for crowd
A lot to give, justice deprived
A mind all-retaining, the agony discounted
A fruitful dialogue, decaying time
A long gracious ramble, life-blood fouled
A heart restored, hunting the divine
A bout complete, homeward bound

Blessings! – Shamar Covenant

The Three Lives of Abortion

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There are three lives involved in the decision to abort an unborn child, and no law or political agenda addresses all three. The two dominant ideologies on this issue address only one of the three, to the detriment of the other two.

Mother. It is her body and life that will be most significantly affected, not only in the nine months of gestation, but in the months and years that follow. She will lose time at work and will incur medical expenses, and her lifestyle will be completely transformed. A pregnancy that is unexpected or unplanned could put the mother at great financial risk and be jarringly disruptive to her daily routine as well as her life goals. The laws that protect the child leave mothers who are disadvantaged at an even greater disadvantage.

Baby. Is it a person at conception? That is semantics. What is created will become a person, a human being. At what point does it become a human being? It has all the genetic material at conception that is required to grow into a self-sufficient person. If the mother has rights, so does the human being created by what the mother did to create it.

Father. The genetics inside those two initial cells that come together are half from the mother and half from the father, should he not be a part of the discussion? The human being that was created required two people agreeing to perform an act together (rape is the obvious exception), why should they not be required to make decisions together regarding the product of the act that they together agreed to do?

No law or political ideology addresses all the lives involved in an abortion. But what we value matters, and the laws reflect what we value. Click to Tweet

There is no such thing as “rights.” Unless there is a God or Ultimate Creator who establishes a moral standard and assigns rights, what we call “rights” are merely a decision regarding what we personally or our society collectively values. Therefore, the better question is: what do we value? You do not value “life” if you neglect the mother, the unborn child, or the father.

Choice. A conception happens when two consenting adults choose to have sex (rape is the obvious exception). This choice comes well before the decision to abort. Should we not be required to consider the consequences of sex? When I was a kid, HIV scared us all, and we all considered the consequences of sex. I have heard well-to-do young women speak on avoiding sex acts that could lead to pregnancy because they first wanted to get established, go to school, and get married and settled. A choice. Our culture values the right to have sex when and with who we want, and Christians are as culpable in this as anyone else, because we participate in this culture’s values. But if that “right” to make that choice has a consequence of creating a human being, that decision is a very weighty decision. We take it too frivolously.

Life. What law can be written that will be able to distinguish an abortion for convenience verses an early birth due to medical complications? Or a medical condition that endangers either mother or child necessitating an abortion? Why should doctors fear doing their job because of zealous idealogues pursuing a self-serving agenda? And it is self-serving, because the all-or-nothing anti-abortion campaigns are not pro-life at all. They are singularly focused on a narrow agenda that excludes the impacts on all the lives surrounding that child’s life. And the life of the mother matters, because if an unexpected pregnancy has a devastating effect on the mother, should not her life matter as much as the child’s? Those who are “pro-life” should put their money where their mouth is and pay for the expenses caused when the disadvantaged have an unexpected child.

Lost. The fathers are lost in all these ideologies. Except in rape, the mother made a choice to share an intimate experience with a man who becomes a father at the exact same moment that she becomes a mother. We can hold him financially responsible for the choice he made to have sex, and yet we exclude him from having any say in whether what is created lives or dies? My brother has six kids, but he also had two miscarriages. After the first one, I was talking with him on the phone and babbling on about my own nonsense when he snapped at me and said he was mourning the loss of a child. I had no idea, but a miscarriage has the same emotional impact on the parents as losing a child, both mother and father. I hear woman talking about their bodies and their rights, what about a father’s rights, a father’s soul? My three-year-old is half me and my wife: my choice matters, and my wife’s choice to have a child with me matters, and I have a say in my child’s life.

Rape. The perspective that the created child is a part of the trauma is just that, a perspective. It is also a valid perspective that the life created from that horrific experience can redeem that loss. What we value matters, and if the created life matters, it can become redemptive. However, I do not believe we should force a woman to have the child if it adds to her trauma. No law can contain the compassion needed to address the trauma and the healing process of rape.

No law or political ideology addresses all the lives involved in an abortion. But what we value matters, and the laws reflect what we value. Do we value our pleasure over the consequences of our decisions? Do we have a “right” to make laws that are completely unable to address all the issues and needs surrounding this huge event? And the creation of life is just that: huge.

Our society is wrestling with what it values, and the different sides are demonizing each other. But all I see are demons arguing against the value of lives that are unimportant to them.

This is a brief article touching on issues that obviously can be explored much more thoroughly than I have done here.

Blessings! – Shamar Covenant

Pure and Faultless Religion

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Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (Jam 1:27 NIV)

Ever wonder if the Church is what it should be? I do, probably because I have been conned and bullied by those wearing pastor’s clothes. This verse in James is an explicit statement about what the Christian Church should be. It is not all-encompassing or exhaustive, but it very clearly and concisely describes what we should be doing. Let us consider it carefully, word by word.

James begins with the word “religion,” which is a bad word to some people. Years ago, I frequently heard that our faith is not about religion but relationship, and that is true and false at the same time. Religion is the actions of people that originate from a faith in something, and everyone puts their faith in something. Organized religion tells us what to believe, and then how to live according to that belief. Individuals also have varying personal religion, their actions betraying their beliefs: themselves, the world system, a vain hope for a vague deliverer, or money or power or sex or community, or whatever.

We all have faith, we are all trusting in something, and the acts that come from that belief are what constructs and shapes our religion. If we truly believe Christ and the Bible, then our faith is in a relationship with God Almighty (John 1:10-14, Rom 8:12-17), and hopefully this is reflected in our life. In his letter, James is telling us how to live according to this faith.

It should be obvious that we desire a religion God finds acceptable, since we are trying to please him in this relationship. He is the author of life and the determiner of our eternal destination. Yet James describes our “acceptable” religion as pure and faultless, so let us examine these words.

Pure has to do with Old Testament cleanness, which is holiness (Lev 10:8-11). God is holy, which means special and set apart, and we must also be holy and clean to approach him (Lev 19:2, 22:31-33). To be clean means you are able to approach God and be a part of his community. Lepers were unclean, possibly due to no fault of their own, and were unable to enter the temple or even be a part of the holy community (Lev 13:44-46). Thus, acceptable religion is what makes us able to approach God and his community as holy.

Faultless, also translated undefiled, refers to having filth removed, making us pure and clean. For this, our sins must be atoned for, which was accomplished by Christ’s death on the cross (Lev 17:11, Heb 9:22, Col 2:14). Christ-believers show our faith when we respond to his act of sacrifice by being self-sacrificing (2 Cor 5:14-15), by denying ourselves and living for others (Phil 2:3-4).

One commentary explained pure and faultless this way:

“Pure” expresses the positive, “undefiled” the negative side of religious service; just as visiting the fatherless and widow is the active, keeping himself unspotted from the world, the passive side of religious duty. (JFB)

Next, James very clearly specifies two things which demonstrate this pure and faultless faith: looking after orphans and widows, and keeping oneself from being polluted. As pointed out above, a positive and a negative, what you do and what you do not do.

The “do” part of this regards orphans and widows, which refers to those who could not provide for themselves, the poor and possibly oppressed. I believe this is hugely significant, and is the reason why Christians have always been first to reach out to the poor, creating orphanages and hospitals and missions that sought to care for those who need it most.

Who are the “orphans and widows” that need help today? Some are obvious, some are not. Today, because we live on debt, it is easy to fall behind on payments after an illness or other interruption in work, and then become homeless. Many who have low paying jobs make too much to qualify for aide but still cannot afford health care. My wife recently went looking for a clinic and discovered that there were no longer many options for free or low-cost health care. And what about those fleeing war-torn countries? Some call them refugees, but others call them illegal immigrants trying to get a free handout.

Yes, I am getting a little political, but the goal is not politics, the goal is to be right with Jesus. Do our actions reflect Biblical descriptions of true God-fearing faith? Do we care for the poor? (Exo 22:21-27, Deu 10:16-19, Deu 14:28-29, Deu 24:14-15, Jer 7:2-8, Jer 22:2-3, Acts 2:44-45, Acts 4:32-35, Gal 2:9-10). I wrote more about this in my article Faith and Politics.

Next, the “do not” part, James says we must keep ourselves from being polluted by the world. To do this, we must recognize how much of what surrounds us is drawing us from the things of God and into depravity, and then we must make war against these heart influencers (Pro 4:23, 2 Cor 10:3-6, Eph 6:10-20). We are not to be monks and hide from the world, rather we are to live as exiles among the Babylonians (Jer 29), building and multiplying and praying for the city around us, and at the same time keeping ourselves pure and holy. This is challenging!

We wake up and read the news, which draws our hearts into the muck of divided politics and the nastiness of the murderers and enslavers of our souls, and we get discouraged. We turn on the radio as we drive to work and are influenced by the words of the devil in the music, telling us that we can be free of any restraint and live for pleasure, while still being right with God. By the time we get to work, our minds have created a new religion that shapes how we work and play and treat our families.

I do not have time here to explain in detail how to live this life unpolluted by the world, except to say we must continually be in the word studying and learning from it, in fellowship with other like-hearted believers, and in prayer, constantly working more of Christ into us and getting the world out of us. We must find ways to get the word of God into us every day, to start our day with God’s truth and prayer, to keep a hold of his Ways as we go to work and do our jobs and interact with people, and then after work, how we play and manage our family life (Josh 1:8). We must take off the world by putting on Christ (Eph 4:22-24). And make sure our closest friends, the ones influencing us, have the same goal of pure and faultless religion (1 Cor 15:33, Heb 3:13, Heb 10:24-25).

It is significant that the “do” part of our religion is caring for the poor, and this should shape what outsiders see in us. Is it what people see in our actions and words? Does the world see us mingling with it or keeping pure? What does our religion look like, and does it match what we proclaim as our faith?

Blessings! – Shamar Covenant

(1) (JFB) Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary, 1871, Public Domain

Faith and Politics

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I am neither conservative nor liberal, Republican nor Democrat. I grew up in a very conservative environment, and for many years I believed the conservative way was the most good and that it made the most sense. However, I never really understood the liberal perspective, because the TV channel was always changed when a Democrat was talking. It was not until I left home that I was able to listen to other perspectives, but even still it was not until I was in my thirties that I truly sought to understand other political perspectives.

In listening to other perspectives, I heard things that made sense. I heard people who genuinely believed the best thing for the country and for people was a perspective that differed from what I had always believed. I began questioning my beliefs about political policy, everything from economics and immigration to welfare and even abortion. What policies really worked? Was there data to show what was really beneficial?

I doubt the numbers we hear that “prove” one perspective or another are clear, because the talking heads that espouse their side of the argument do not really care about facts, only about being right, and they are very good at sounding smart and making the opposing arguments seem foolish.

Yet as a Christian, I do not need to trust political commentators, I do not need to know for certain which news outlet gives the most unbiased information, and I do not need to fully understand what really goes on in the power struggle at the highest political and financial levels in this country or the world.

I just need Christ and his word to guide me.

What does the word say, then? What is the perspective of Christ? What does the Bible say is the responsibility of politicians and leaders, including the wealthy who wield and influence power over many? What sort of policies should I, as a Christian, support?

Start with the obvious: God demands that rulers and judges pursue and execute justice and righteousness:

You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the LORD your God is giving you. Deu 16:18-20 ESV

This is what the LORD says to you, house of David: “‘Administer justice every morning; rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed, or my wrath will break out and burn like fire because of the evil you have done—burn with no one to quench it.’” Jer 21:12 NIV

The laws in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy not only teach of sacrifices to atone for sin, but laws regarding justice and moral living. In these laws, we see the heart of God, and that the intent of rulers and judges executing justice was for them to protect the poor from the oppressor. Looking a little past one of the verses above, we see what is truly on God’s heart:

Hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah, who sits on David’s throne, you and your servants and your people who enter these gates. Thus says the LORD, “Do justice and righteousness, and deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor. Also do not mistreat or do violence to the stranger, the orphan, or the widow; and do not shed innocent blood in this place. Jer 22:2-3 NASB

In God's O.T. laws, we see the heart of God, and that the intent of rulers and judges executing justice was for them to protect the poor from the oppressor. Click to Tweet

The charge is to do justice and righteousness, but what does that look like? The charge continues in explanation: Rescue those robbed from their oppressor, do no wrong or violence to the stranger (also translated: foreigner, sojourner) or the fatherless or the widow. Elsewhere, there is another added to the list:

Thus says the LORD of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart. Zech 7:9-10 ESV

Either the “one another” includes or is an addition to the sojourner (foreigner, stranger), the fatherless, the widow, and the poor. In ancient society, orphans and widows would have no means to provide for themselves, being without father or husband; therefore, relatives were charged to provide for them. This would surely be a burden on family without means, while those with means would easily be able to provide for relatives.

This brings us to the poor, which is really what all of these words refer to. Those with means do not need protection or provision from the government.

The word for poor refers to the afflicted, humble, lowly, needy, and poor (from the Olive Tree Enhanced Strong’s Dictionary, h6041), and I believe each of those words points to an important group that God wants us to look after.

Finally, there’s the stranger or foreigner or sojourner, which requires a more lengthy definition:

Sojourners are not like foreigners visiting some other country; rather, they have settled in the land for some time and live there, even though they are not native to that area. Abraham was a sojourner in Hebron (Gen. 23:4), Moses in Midian for forty years (Exod. 2:22), Elimelech and his family in Moab (Ruth 1:1), and the Israelites in Egypt (Exod. 6:4; 22,20). (Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Word)

It should be obvious why God wants us to care for the poor, orphans and widows, but why the foreigners? The answer is in the law itself: “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.” (Exodus 22:21, NIV). This refers to the same category as the others, the poor and oppressed foreigners among them, because the Hebrews went to Egypt to flee famine and years later were oppressed by the government and made to be slaves.

I also believe the focus on foreigners is meant to include non-Jews in God’s salvation, but that is a different discussion. Interestingly, the Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptians out of fear of their numbers, which seems very similar to the immigration problem in America today.

Foreigners, orphans, widows, the poor – all of these are people without the means to defend themselves from those who do have means, from those who abuse their power and take advantage of the social and economic difference between them. Who does this refer to in today’s society? It probably differs from country to country, and even within each country there may be differences state to state and city to city, so I will refer to my specific experience.

Recently, my wife and I went to court against someone who was a criminal, who had a criminal income and connections, a man with means and influence beyond our own. We were unable to afford an attorney at the time, so after trying in vain to get multiple law enforcement agencies to pursue this criminal, we represented ourselves in court. Despite ample circumstantial evidence showing what this man was doing, despite the judge believing us, neither law enforcement nor the court acknowledged that this man was a criminal, nor did they give us justice. The system was unable to provide justice to those without the means to spend money on attorneys and without the influence to get law enforcement to do their job. And we are comfortably in the middle class!

This is why I do not believe capital punishment is a good option for this country, because it seems only the poor will ever end up being executed for their crimes. While I believe capital punishment is Biblical (Gen 9:6, Rom 13:4) (I acknowledge this is debatable), it is not Biblical to have laws that are only enforced on those without means to defend themselves.

This is what I believe God intended the rulers and judges of nations to consider in their execution of justice and righteousness. It is easy enough to say that stealing is wrong and that those who do so should be punished in some way, it is much more challenging to ensure that the poor man stealing because he is starving (Pro 6:30-31) is not punished more severely than the stock broker who steals to increase his already substantial wealth (Jam 5:1-6). When a judge sentences a white man to a few years for embezzling millions while sentencing a black man to decades for embezzling a couple hundred thousand, he may be adhering to the laws of the land, but he will fall under the judgment of God.

God’s provision for the poor applies not only to laws and courts, but to social services like welfare, housing assistance, financing education, but there is not time here to explore all of this. And while I do not see any indication in Scripture that the wealthy and those with means and influence need any special protection or provision from the government, I do see God commanding fairness even for them: Do not show favoritism to a poor person in his lawsuit. (Exo 23:3 HCSB)

From here, I would like to address a handful of specific issues, exploring how I can use the Word of God to guide my support of the various political issues and debates, but in separate articles. In conclusion, I see the Bible being very clear about the role of government as well as those with power and influence, that it is to protect those without means and those who are suffering.

Blessings! – Shamar Covenant

Discipleship: What We Believe

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(This article is part of a series that starts here.)

My definition of a Christian disciple distinguishes Christianity from other beliefs, but it does not articulate everything needed to get a person saved, and so it seems incomplete. When I go through a gospel presentation, am I telling a person everything they need to know to get into the kingdom? Or is the prayer I am leading them through only leading them to a false idea of Christianity?

For example, one gospel presentation I was taught was the “Roman Road,” which uses three verses to explain the gospel and lead people to Christ: Rom 3:23, 6:23, 10:9-10. But do these three verses contain everything we need to believe to truly call ourselves Christians?

Does the Roman Road gospel presentation, using Rom 3:23, 6:23, and 10:9-10, tell us everything we must believe to be Christian? Click To Tweet

Norman Geisler and Chad Meister’s book Reasons for Faith identifies the beliefs that are essential to be true for Christianity to be true, and then breaks them down further to a shorter list of those that a person must believe in order to be saved. In other words, some beliefs must be true but we do not necessarily have to believe them, or understand them fully, to be saved. I want to focus on what we must know and believe so that we can check our own beliefs and also be equipped to help lead others to Christ more effectively. With this in mind, I summarized these beliefs below, followed by a detailed explanation with verse references.

I believe:

There is one God, and Jesus is both fully God and fully human.

Every person is sinful and therefore deserves death, but Jesus paid this death penalty for our sin on the cross and then demonstrated power over sin and death by rising from death back to life.

This sacrifice is God’s grace gift for the forgiveness of our sin, and this gift of grace is received by having faith.

These are the elements we must have in explaining the full gospel of Christ:

There is one God. Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “Listen, Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” (NET) The Hebrew looks more like this: “Pay close attention, Israel: YHWH God, YHWH one.” This is a simple and powerful statement saying there is only one true, almighty, and sovereign God. To understand this, we each need to understand what God is to us. We all drift toward our small gods, believing in some outside force that has influence over us but not complete control, and allowing our devotion and trust to fall on aspects of the world around us. Christians must not only know that God is the one and only God, Isa 45:5, the creator of everything, Heb 11:3, the beginning and the end, Rev 22:13, and that he is complete in his sovereignty over all the universe, Col 1:18, we must also pay special attention to ensuring our life reflects this knowledge in everything we do, say, and even think, Matt 5:21-48.

Jesus is fully human. Jesus is fully God. Jesus must be more than a human teacher, and at the same time calling him a deity is not enough to adequately describe him. The first chapter of John’s gospel, John 1:1-3, makes it clear that Jesus took part in the creation of the universe, in everything that was made, meaning he helped create you! But he was also flesh and blood like us, John 1:14 & Heb 2:17, humbling himself to take on our weaknesses in order to be a perfect, eternal high priest on our behalf, Heb 6:19-20. What separates his flesh from ours is that he was born of God and not a man, Luke 1:35, and therefore did not inherit Adam’s sin.(1)

We all have sinned and deserve death. Everyone has sinned and falls short of the glory of God, Rom 3:23, and this sin requires death as punishment, Rom 6:23. It is a common thing to minimize our sin, but this is a mistake. We must recognize the evil in what we do and say and think, Matt 5:21-48, acknowledging the vast difference between our perfectly righteous and holy God and us, and accept that the only just punishment is death, Eph 2:1-2, 12. This is a penalty that must be paid, in order for justice to be satisfied, Heb 9:12-15.

Jesus paid the penalty of our sins on the cross. Because he was fully human and subject to our weaknesses, and yet without sin, 2 Cor 5:21, Jesus’s death on the cross is the perfect sacrifice for our sins, the complete payment of our debt, Heb 9:14, satisfying justice regarding our sin. There is nothing more that needs to be done or can be done about sin, it is wholly wrapped up and finished on the cross, Col 2:13-15, leaving no room for works that earn salvation, Eph 2:8-9, nor for guilt or self-condemnation, Psa 32:5.

Jesus rose from death back to life in bodily form. More than a spirit, a ghost, or a dream, Jesus demonstrated this by eating food with them and having people touch him, Luke 24:36-43, and many people witnessed his resurrection, Acts 1:3. Jesus rose from the dead to demonstrate his power over death and his deity, Eph 1:18-23, and to give us the hope of a future resurrection, Rom 6:5. His resurrection is so important, believing it is specifically mentioned as a requirement for salvation, Rom 10:9.

We all need grace. We are not able to live the life and pay the penalty that Jesus did, we all already failed, Isa 64:6. Therefore, we need the gift of forgiveness given to us, we need access to Christ’s paid penalty of sin. Just because he paid the penalty doesn’t mean he paid it for me, his blood only covers me via grace. This grace is the free gift of forgiveness and salvation, Rom 3:24. Grace is the means of forgiveness because we did not earn it and cannot attain it on our own, Eph 2:9. Grace puts us in the humble position of having to accept what another did for us. Grace is the gift offered, faith is the gift accepted, Eph 2:8.

We all need faith. Everyone has the option of refusing the gift of grace (Esau, Judas). Accepting it is an act of faith, it is the “I believe,” Rom 10:8-10, and it is how we access what Jesus did for us, John 6:47. This does not mean that we fully understand it or can explain it, Phil 3:15-16, but simply that we believe and agree to live according to these truths, Rom 1:17. Further, to keep us humble, all of us will, from time to time, be faithless and fearful and backslide into sinfulness, yet God remains faithful to draw us back to him, 2 Tim 2:11-13.

My conclusion is that most gospel presentations, the Roman Road included, do not include all the truths necessary to adequately lead someone to Christ. That being said, my wife became a Christian without believing that Jesus was God, but when someone confronted her on this issue, he easily convinced her of this truth. Why? Because she was saved, the Spirit of Christ was dwelling within her, and God lead her to that conversation with that man so that her faith would be made complete. This happened in the Bible, when Aquila and Priscilla had to explain to Apollos the full gospel, Acts 18:24-26, and when Paul met some men who had only heard of John’s baptism, Acts 19:1-7.

Therefore, I do not want to discourage anyone in using these helpful gospel presentations, but I do want to encourage everyone to better understand their faith so that all of us can more effectively sharpen one another, Prov 27:17. I hope this was helpful. I know I enjoyed studying the essential beliefs of my faith.

Blessings! – Shamar Covenant

(1) Geisler, Norman & Meister, Chad, editors. Reasons for Faith. Wheaton Illinois: Crossway Books, 2007. Kindle edition. p 98-99

Discipleship: What Discipleship is Not…

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(This article is part of a series that starts here.)

Thus far I have defined Christian disciple and then summed up Christian discipleship as Jesus’s call to “follow me.” I will further explore what being a disciple of Christ should look like, but first I want to take a moment to be clear about what I believe it does not look like. If we truly want to follow Jesus and help others do the same, we need to look at his word and the examples he gave us, and be careful who we choose to follow.

I will focus on two issues: one-on-one discipleship, and the concept that everyone should be making disciples. I have seen both of these in discipleship ministries, and I do not see either of them exemplified in the Bible. I do not believe these are prohibited, necessarily, but I believe they are grossly misapplied.

The first issue is the one-on-one discipleship method or model where a newer Christian meets with someone more mature (a mentor) to be discipled. Jesus was never shown to be discipling anyone one-on-one, he was always with at least two, if not three or four (Matt 26:37, Mark 13:3, Luke 9:28, John 21:20). And this makes sense, for accountability and transparency. I have previously posted about a former pastor of mine who I discovered was a fraud, and one of the things he would do in his one-on-one sessions was give disparaging information about everyone else. He made it seem like he was sharing confidential information because he trusted us. It was actually a way to control us by keeping him as our center and slightly at odds with (and superior to) everyone else. This is the danger in one-on-one time: it is much easier to be manipulated, and much more difficult to verify truth.

An argument for one-on-one may be that we are more willing to be open and honest in the security and privacy of a one-on-one meeting. Yet, if we are to live in community and build a trusting, loving relationship with one another as the Bible describes (John 13:34-35, Acts 2:42-47, 4:32-35, 1 Cor 12:12-27, Phil 2:1-5), would not this be better built by meeting in small groups? If we are to love one another with a love that surpasses our own blood family (Matt 12:46-50, Heb 13:1), we must act like a family.

Jesus picked twelve men to train into leaders, and he spent all his time with them, but the record indicates he spent more “private” time with Peter, James and John. I believe this is the model for discipleship, that we should find two to four other people (of the same gender) who have a desire to draw nearer to Christ, then develop this tiny group into a discipleship group. This tiny group is where we should be most open and honest with one another, confessing and praying for one another, studying the word and applying it together. Also, with a group this small, everyone can have an opportunity to share, so no one gets left out.

The second issue regards teaching that everyone should be making disciples, even young, immature or new believers. I believe this comes from what Jesus commanded before he left, “Go and make disciples of all nations…” (Matt 28:19). I have two problems with this, that these ministries focus so much on becoming a disciple-maker that they skip the part about actually being a disciple, and that the Bible clearly shows designated teachers should do the teaching.

I have seen people who are new in their faith being taught about and encouraged to implement a “discipleship multiplication” system. This is when you invest in one person for a year, helping them to develop their faith, and after that year both of you separate and each pick another person to invest in, and so on. At the end of the first year you are left with two discipled Christians (including you), then after the second year you have four, and by the third year you would have eight. This would create more Christians over time than you ever could by “converting” 10,000 people a day. However, if you or the one you invest in does not have a verified, tested faith, this is the same as a multi-level marketing (MLM) scam.

I have been to a few MLM meetings, and one of them was about becoming a financial advisor. When I asked the guy recruiting me about focusing more on how to help people with their finances, he unabashedly expressed a greater interest in becoming a supervisor of advisors, recruiting others to do the work. In other words, he was more interested in the money and power, not the actual job. That may be ok in the secular world with your vocation, but not with Christianity and discipleship. We need to think more about our personal relationship with Christ than becoming a great Christian multiplier. (Jer 45:4-5)

We need to think more about our personal relationship with Christ than becoming a great Christian multiplier. (Jer 45:4-5) Click To Tweet

The focus for any newer or less mature believer should always be on the basics of being a disciple, studying the Bible and prayer and fellowship and walking the walk. Showing others how to do this should come after the basics are solid and the understanding of the faith has grown.

This leads to the second part of my contention with this method, the emphasis on teaching. If you pressure people to be making disciples before they have even learned to walk the walk, you are putting them in the role of teacher before their knowledge and faith has been verified. This only leads to incorrect teaching and lifestyles being passed on to new believers.

I have heard discipleship ministries say something like this, “You only need to be one step ahead of someone else to help them.” I do not see this modeled in the New Testament, and it ends up causing many problems. Too many people fall away from the faith (Luke 8:14) or develop strange unbiblical ideas (1 Tim 1:3-4, 19-20) or slip into worldliness (Luke 9:61-62), and these people should not be guiding others in the faith.

One verse commonly used to argue for this one-on-one discipleship multiplication model is 2 Timothy 2:2, “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” (NASB) Do you see the word “teach” in there? The letters 1 & 2 Timothy are one church leader giving another church leader guidance, a teacher telling a teacher to train other teachers.

James wrote, “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” (Jam 3:1, NIV) Can you teach without knowledge? Can you be a leader before you are a follower? I have seen people new in the faith put into positions of leadership who created dissension, destroyed Bible study groups, and became a poison to the ministry. All this can be avoided if we are doing what Jesus did, meeting in small discipleship groups, and allowing people to be trained and tested into leadership.

I believe Jesus was speaking to a group of people he trained and tested into leaders when he spoke Matt 28:18-20, and that he did not intend every single Christian to be doing this. The work of leaders is to build us into maturity so that we are loving one another (Eph 4:11-32), not so that we are out doing the work of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Leaders need to be developed over time, which is what Paul was saying to Timothy in 2 Tim 2:2.

Yes, there are exceptions, I can cite a couple. But for the vast majority of us, we should be focusing on walking the Christian walk, not teaching others, and we should be doing this in small groups not one-on-one. We can share our faith, giving our testimony and being a witness, without the requirement to teach others how to walk the walk or develop others into strong disciples. Let us focus on loving one another in community, which is what Jesus said would indicate to the whole world that we are his children (John 13:34-35).

Blessings! – Shamar Covenant

Next article in series, Discipleship: What We Believe

Discipleship: From Disciple to Discipleship

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(This article is part of a series that starts here.)

Look closely at Jesus and what he did. He picked twelve men to follow him closely as he traveled and taught, but have you ever noticed how he treated the crowds? He told them parables without explaining the meaning!

Then the disciples came to him and said, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” He replied, “You have been given the opportunity to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but they have not. For whoever has will be given more, and will have an abundance. But whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. (Matt 13:10-12 NET)

Jesus had just told the story about someone throwing seeds out and how some never grew, some withered quickly, some were choked out by weeds, and some produced a good crop, which was not news to anyone in the crowd. They all understood farming and how planting seeds worked, yet no explanation was given to them for this obvious bit of information.

It was only the twelve and those called disciples who asked the meaning of the parables. These were those who waited until the big show was over, after Jesus performed creation miracles involving flesh growing where none existed before, after feeding thousands of people with a handful of bread and fish, after the crowds had their fill of the fantastical and their bellies were full and they went off to tell their friends about the great experience. After all this, there would be a few hangers on who would press in close to Jesus and ask, “What does all this mean?”

It was these who saw that Jesus was offering something more than a momentary experience. He offered life, and they were hungry for that life, and to get that life they had to pursue that life. This is discipleship, pursuing the life of Jesus Christ, seeking to be like him, patiently waiting for the noise to quiet down so that we can press in close to Jesus and ask what it all means and how do we live it out.

In my previous article, I defined Christian disciple. This is what I came up with:

A Christian disciple is one who not only learns from and imitates Christ but worships him as God and Creator of heaven and earth, and this is reflected clearly in the person’s lifestyle, moral character and worldview.

In the Bible, the followers of Jesus were called disciples, but the word discipleship is not in the Bible. We must be very careful, then, how we define and execute it! We all too often take a sentence here and there and piece together a ministry method that strays from the point of it all.

With this in mind, I want to start very simple. I believe the best way to describe discipleship is “follow me.”

As He was walking along the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the sea, since they were fishermen. “Follow Me,” He told them, “and I will make you fish for people!” Immediately they left their nets and followed Him. (Matt 4:18-20 HCSB)

For the next three years, they followed Jesus everywhere, seeing and hearing everything. They lived so closely with him that nothing about him was hidden, and he taught them to do what he was doing, even sending them out to practice. They were trained to be leaders of the church Jesus was starting.

But here we must make distinctions. Not everyone is a leader of the church, are they? Not everyone is a teacher or preacher, and Paul states that the leaders are in their position to perfect believers for ministry (which is service), building up the body of Christ so that we are unified in faith and knowledge of Jesus, making us mature believers (Eph 4:11-13). Should everyone in the church be telling others to “follow me” if the example in the Bible only shows trained leaders doing this?

Paul wrote this, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” (1 Cor 11:1 NIV) And before this he mentioned sending someone who would set an example:

Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church. (1 Cor 4:16-17 NIV)

Yet, how long had Paul been a Christian, and been in leadership, before we have a recorded instance of him telling others to follow his example? In 2 Thess 3:7 & 9 he said, “For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example,” and, “in order to offer ourselves as a model for you to imitate.” (NIV) He wrote this letter about year 51, more than 15 years after his conversion (AD 35-ish) and 5 years after being brought into leadership at Antioch by Barnabus (AD 46-47, Acts 9:1-30, 11:19-30).(1)

Notice there were ten years of Paul living out the Christian life before he was called into leadership. Also note that 1 Corinthians was written about year 55, four years after Paul picked up Timothy to train him as a leader, so Paul was sending a trained leader to set them an example to follow. Those who are making disciples, doing the work of teaching, training, and setting the good example, ought to be those who not only paid their dues being trained as leaders, but who also have proven faithfulness.

I do not mean to make discipleship seem unattainable. If we are living in community, we should be able to find these examples of faith, whether they are in an official capacity of leadership or not. Paul wrote this to the Philippians: “Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example.” (Phil 3:17 NLT) I believe it is important to be connected to the body of Christ for this very reason. We cannot find strong disciples to imitate if we do not go where they go, and as faithful members of the body of Christ, they will be found within the body of Christ.

Therefore, make no excuses, and let no self-righteous hypocrite keep you from going to church, nor a disgraced leader, nor a pushy evangelist. In the same way the early disciples had to wait for the crowd to disperse and push their way forward to get close enough to hear Jesus explain the parables, or possibly to ask him a question, so we also must push through the mess to find those setting the good example. If discipleship is summed up in “follow me,” then find someone to follow!

But what if even in church you cannot find a good example to follow? You can only know this from the Bible, and to the Bible you can go for discipleship. Study the lives of Jesus, Peter, Paul, David, Elijah, Boaz, Jephthah, and so many others. Note their successes and failures, and model yourself after them. “Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.” (Heb 13:7 NASB)

Do not be a member of the crowd who enjoys the show then leaves without asking for more, be among the disciples who patiently wait and press forward to find those good examples to learn from and follow.

Blessings! – Shamar Covenant

Next article in series, Discipleship: What Discipleship is Not…

(1) Timeline from The Essential Bible Companion by John H. Walton, Mark L. Strauss, and Ted Cooper Jr.

Discipleship: What is a Disciple?

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Recently some troubling things happened in my life regarding the church I was involved in, which lead me to studying discipleship, since that was the focus of the church ministry. I want to have a better understanding of what discipleship is, how it should be done, and what the Biblical model is, if there is one.

I have been told that discipleship ministries appear cultish, and I can see why, I have been in a few of them. In my first discipleship ministry 20 years ago, I was taught some things I had to unlearn after I left, mostly regarding some verses they used to validate their methods. More recently, my church promised to develop and grow in a way that never actually happened. Yet Jesus called his followers “disciples,” so we must be able to be disciples without all the weirdness.

To begin a study on discipleship, we should define the word disciple. Maybe the meaning seems obvious, but the point of studying something is to make it certain. I have most often heard that the word disciple means learner, which is true:

g3101. μαθητής mathētēs; from 3129; a learner, i.e. pupil: — disciple. (Olive Tree Enhanced Strong’s Dictionary)

We need more than a translation, though, so I went to Vines:

A “disciple” was not only a pupil, but an adherent; hence they are spoken of as imitators of their teacher; cf. John 8:31; 15:8. (Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary)

A disciple is not simply a learner. A student is a learner, but a biology student is only learning biology from his teacher and not really anything more. A disciple is more than that, because they are not only learning knowledge but trying to become like the teacher in lifestyle, character, and world view. A disciple is what you call those who pursue religion and philosophy.

This makes sense because we as Christians are trying to become like Jesus. Disciples are learning to be like someone else, which means they are trying to change themselves and become a different person.

There is something that separates Christian disciples from others, though. It was pointed out to me recently that Christians not only learn from and become like Jesus, but they worship him as God.

Sure, this seems obvious, but we are trying to understand fully what discipleship means, so we need to understand fully, in all aspects, what is a disciple, and how it is applied. Disciples of Christ do not merely learn to be like a teacher, we are learning to be like God Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. This is an important distinction.

The 11 disciples traveled to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had directed them. When they saw Him, they worshiped, but some doubted. Then Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt 28:16-20, HCSB)

Notice in this passage that they worshiped Jesus despite some doubts, that Jesus has all authority, and that disciples are taught to observe (in the Greek, to watch over closely, much like the Hebrew “shamar”) and not merely learn or know. There is a doing, a living it out that must accompany the learning, and the motive is that it comes from God, Creator of heaven and earth, Creator of all that is true. This should be powerful motive to change one’s lifestyle, character and world view.

The Vine’s definition above cites two passages that also show us the same things.

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples (John 8:31, ESV)

Here Jesus says we must live in his word, meaning the way we live our lives must have its foundation in his words. It does no good to have a great knowledge of the Bible if our lives do not change because of it, or to live contrary to what the Author of truth tells us. To abide implies that this cannot be a part of our lives, like what we do in mornings and on Sundays only, but that everything we do, say, and even think is based on what is in the Bible.

I questioned a Buddhist once about his faith, after he explained how helpful that religion was to his business and personal life. I asked him how the beliefs such as reincarnation affect him, and his answer was that he takes what is useful from Buddhism and leaves the rest.

I know many Christians often do the same thing, but Jesus did not say, “If you abide in most of my word, you are truly my disciples.” Jesus did not come and die for us so that we can only observe some of what he said and throw the rest out because it is hard to understand. No, if we are truly disciples of Christ, it should be reflected in our whole life. Jesus is not just some great teacher to emulate, but God who we must worship with everything we have.

This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. (John 15:8, NIV)

Being a disciple of Christ is not something that can be hidden, or done without notice. We cannot truly be disciples of Christ if our lives do not change in a way that others can see, because it requires living a different lifestyle, moral values, and way of seeing the world around us. Jesus not only said that we should bear fruit, but that we should bear much fruit, indicating that it should consume our lives.

I heard a Christian telling another Christian how to manipulate conversation to steer it toward Christ, and I thought this was strange. I have never had to artificially bring up my faith, because it cannot help but come out. It affects everything I do! I get up early to study the Bible, I work hard at a job I do not enjoy because I am working for Christ, and I have no fear of doing the right thing knowing that my life is in Christ’s hands. People come up and ask me questions about the Bible not because I am always preaching at them, I do not. Rather, they see that I live differently and that it comes from my faith.

A Christian disciple is one who not only learns from and imitates Christ but worships him as God and Creator of heaven and earth, and this is reflected clearly in the person’s lifestyle, in moral character, and their worldview (the sermon on the mount is a great place to see all this, Matt 5-7). Discipleship would come from this definition, but I will have to explore this next.

Are we truly Christ’s disciples if we are not demonstrating it in our lives by bearing much fruit? Do we truly believe that Jesus is God and has complete authority in heaven and earth if our lives do not reflect a drastic change toward Christ-likeness? Even writing this is convicting for me! I hope it is for you as well, to our Father’s glory.

Blessings! – Shamar Covenant

Next article in series, Discipleship: From Disciple to Discipleship

The Trust

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A strange thing happened shortly after I posted my last article, my wife and I left the church we were with and the pastor who had been such a good friend. Our pastor told others that the reason for our departure was that we were discouraged with his intention to move to California, but that was not true. The real reason was that he lied to me. But that was just the beginning…

For years my wife had pointed out similarities in our pastor’s sermons and Mike Bickle’s sermons, but I never looked that closely since I knew that Mike Bickle had worked with John Wimber, and our pastor claimed to have worked with him as well. Our pastor made it seem like Wimber was the source for his theology. Then one day my wife showed me something: she put in a google search a phrase that our pastor had used and the first result was a Mike Bickle sermon. I looked further and discovered a few of our pastor’s sermons that followed Mike Bickle’s points verse by verse. This may not seem like that big of a deal, but our pastor had always told us not to use commentaries in our study of the Bible, and here he was copying verse by verse other people’s sermons.

I confronted our pastor as politely as I could (I am not really good at confrontation). I asked why his sermons followed Mike Bickle’s so closely, even pointing out how Mike Bickle’s most recent Facebook post showed the same teaching verses as our pastor’s last sermon. Our pastor denied it, saying it was just coincidence. And I wanted so much to believe him that I went along with it. Things just kept nagging at me, though. To explain why, I will give some back story – remember my mention of him moving to California in the first paragraph?

Since leaving his church, we found that it is amazingly common for pastors to plagiarize sermons. I believe churches are too business focused, forgetting Acts 6:1-4, which make it clear that senior church leaders should be teaching… Click To Tweet

About six months before this, our pastor announced to the church that he was moving to California in about a year. He did this while my wife and I were away on vacation, which is odd since our church had only 13 members including the pastor and his wife – why didn’t he wait a week? He said it was because he wanted to address us separately knowing we would have questions (is it peculiar that he knew everyone else would just accept it without challenging him on it?). After this announcement, I met with him repeatedly and challenged him on his stated purpose of growing our group into leaders who would in turn be developing their own groups under his guidance. I also pointed out that since half the group intended to go with him, he would be leaving nothing behind since there were no leaders appointed within our small group.

Shortly following my challenges to him, his story about going to California changed, and he said he did not know when or if he would be leaving. He also began making strange accusations of me, like telling me I was too legalistic because I disagreed with him on whether or not the Declaration of Independence was biblical. At one point I suggested a night of food and fellowship that all our church would be able to attend, because up to that point the only fellowship night was him meeting with people downtown at 5pm on Fridays, and most of us could not attend this due to work schedules (conspicuously, only those intending to go to California were able to attend this fellowship meeting). His response to my suggestion was to call me an Absalom! This contradicted his statements that he wanted to develop us into leaders and that he wanted us to take the initiative to love one another better.

During these six months, I began to realize that for the five years I had known him, despite claiming he wanted us to become leaders, not once did he ever give us an assignment or do anything to actually develop us into leaders. All he ever did was preach at us once a week. He also seemed to avoid growing our group. Instead, he had excuses for why he did not want various people to come into our group, usually it was that they were unwilling to give up the sin in their life.

Thinking about all this, and remembering the look on his face when he lied to me about copying sermons, I still wanted to believe him! Yet, I decided to leave anyway, but I did so very peacefully, even telling him that I still wanted to be friendly.

However, after leaving, I started looking more into his past, and I discovered even more lies. Even a simple internet search showed that he lied about his age and the number of times he had been married! I met with a person who used to be a part of the church and who hired a private investigator to uncover our pastor’s lies. This man spoke with people who knew our pastor recently as well as those from twenty years ago, and there was a consistent story about our pastor being fired from past churches for sexual misconduct and refusing to work with other leaders.

Discovering his additional marriages may not seem like such a big deal, but he had specifically told my wife and I that he had virtually no sexual experience before marrying his current wife. I spoke with another member of the church who told me that our pastor had bragged about his number of sexual conquests, and even seemed to refer to his current wife as a conquest in pointing out that he took her virginity. He gave two completely different stories about what kind of person he was!

Now there is nothing conspicuous about being married multiple times and having a history of sexual conquests, but it does make it clear that our pastor is a liar and a hypocrite, because he preaches purity and repentance – all he had to do was confess the truth and he would be in the clear. He clearly had not lived the pure life that he claimed, and if there is no confession then there is no repentance. Why did he lie? Probably because the truth would have made it hard to hook up with his current wife. The rest of the world could probably care less about all this, but to a Christian who meets regularly with a pastor for discipleship where he divulges the most personal parts of himself as he tries to uncover his life of sin and turn it toward Christ, this is unspeakable hypocrisy and wickedness. He was lying about his past while we poured out our own truthfully and in faith.

Our pastor also made much of a Special Forces background, claiming he was a team leader of a black ops group working under a DOD title. He even correlated his alleged military experience to his Christian walk, as if the experience gave him insight into struggle, perseverance, and true servant leadership. We contacted the Guardians of the Green Beret to verify his claims and they came back telling us that there was no record of him ever being in the military! They would publicly out him if we could provide a sermon recording where he claimed to be Special Forces. Of course, we stopped recording his sermons back in 2015 except for a handful of times where someone used a cell phone to record it for someone who could not be there, but we are still digging through what we have. (UPDATE: we found a sermon, and a few others contacted him, and now he is listed on their website here.)

This, too, may not seem like a grievous evil to others, but to those of us who spent so much time with him listening to his stories and how he made himself seem so faithful and righteous, now he is not only a liar and a hypocrite, but a fraud. As I mentioned above, our lives were wide open to him while he has been telling us fairy tales about who he really is.

But after the sinking feeling of betrayal went through me, the very first thought in my head was this, “I have a good Shepherd, a perfect Pastor, and his name is Jesus Christ. Click To Tweet

Another story of his is that he works with a private military contractor, that he trains their security contractors, and that he spends time weekly doing this. He also went on trips claiming to be doing executive protection (bodyguard) work with this group. However, he told me the man who recruited him into the company was Erik Prince and the company was Academi. An internet search will show that Erik Prince sold his company Blackwater to a group of private investors in 2011 (after which it was renamed Academi), and that Erik Prince works with an entirely different company that is focused on work overseas. I am very curious about what our pastor is really doing while he pretends to be a famed former Special Forces leader doing training for one of the biggest private military contractors in the world.

I would like to mention here that since leaving his church and visiting others in the area, my wife and I have found, and heard, that it is amazingly common for pastors to plagiarize other’s sermons. I believe this is due to churches being too business focused and forgetting the words in Acts 6:1-4, which make it clear that senior church leaders should be teaching and praying, not administering. However, what makes our pastor such a hypocrite is how often he told us that we should not be using commentaries in our study of the Bible. I always thought this was silly, since there is so much good historical information in commentaries that is needed to understand scriptures, but to find our pastor pulling right out of other sermons is very surprising, and discouraging.

As we uncovered all this, and there is more than I can mention here, I also took a good look at myself and the others who have followed him for so many years. For some time I have questioned what we were doing as a group, but I went along with it because so many of the important things seemed to be in place, such as my pastor being a good friend, and because I did not expect perfection in my leadership. But others in the group appear to think our pastor walks on water, and they treat everything he says as if it was the word of God himself. One lady told us about her one-on-one sessions where she endured verbal abuse from him, and yet she still returned to him for advice and followed his counsel. Why do we do this? We all made victims of ourselves, for sure.

To be honest, I do not know the answer, I am no psychologist. But after the sinking feeling of betrayal went through me, the very first thought in my head was this, “I have a good Shepherd, a perfect Pastor, and his name is Jesus Christ. I have nothing to fear.” God worked through a liar, hypocrite and fraud to bring me closer to him, and to strengthen my marriage. And though I may question every other pastor with much greater scrutiny, though I may be more distrustful of others and the stories they tell, and though it may be hard to find a church to commit to after all this, I know I will persevere in faith. I know what truth is, I know what being a disciple of Christ is, and I know I have a good Father in heaven looking out for me.

Blessings! – Shamar Covenant

My Pastor and Friend

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Not too long ago, our pastor announced that he felt God calling him back to another state (about 1000 miles away from us). He said it would not happen immediately but would be in a year or more, and he wanted to be open and honest with us about it. This might not be too big a deal for many churches, but our church is a house church with 13 members at this time, so the pastor leaving feels like the end of it all. To make matters worse, a few of us said that they would go with him, leaving the rest of us feeling even more left behind.

My wife and I experienced feelings of hurt and loss since we are among those who would not make the move. As the feelings of hurt and loss stirred, an anger also rose up, and our thoughts turned antagonistic toward our pastor. After all, he was betraying us, was he not?! Thankfully, we were mature enough to recognize ungodly thoughts, and we corrected our hearts through right thinking. If God is moving our pastor away from us, then he has a plan for us right here where we are, and there is nothing to fear or be angry about. We began to pray for the team that would be moving away, and for guidance on our next steps.

One of the things that came to mind during all of this, which reinforced the reasons to not be angry and to trust God through it all, was that our pastor is not just our teacher, he is our friend. When I am sick, he calls me and checks in on me. When I have a struggle with sin, he is there with me pushing me through it. When I suffered the loss of my sister and my father in the same month, he called me frequently to check on me and make sure I was ok. Our pastor knows each one of us, he knows our strengths and weaknesses, our hurts and our triggers, our sin and our righteousness, our past and our present, and he obviously cares for us. He lifts us up in prayer every day. He is truly a shepherd who closely watches over his flock with diligence and care (John 10:11-16, 1 Thes 2:7-12).

I have been very blessed because I have been shepherded before, while at Christian Challenge at the University of Southern California and at Berean Church in Rochester, MN. However, I do not believe very many others have experienced true shepherding. A while back, I asked a close friend from my Christian Challenge days about his new church, whether his pastor was a teacher or a shepherd, and he wanted to say shepherd, but when I pressed him on how much his pastor knew his personal life, his struggles and joys, my friend had to admit that he was only a teacher and not really a shepherd. Just because your pastor knows your name does not mean he knows who you are or what is going on in your life.

The word pastor means shepherd. I do not think we have many pastors in America, especially in any larger churches. We have preachers, and some of them are such amazing teachers! We have access to the best teaching on the Bible the world has ever known! The resources we have nowadays to study scripture truly facilitate a deeper understanding of the word of God.

Yet what does it matter how good the teaching is, if we are not coached through the process of living it out? Or if our teachers are not genuinely invested in our spiritual growth? Instead of discipleship, American churches rely on worldly counseling (even Christian counselors use the same counseling methods the world does). Another good friend from my Christian Challenge days was on staff with a large church, and he was seeing a psychiatrist about his depression that arose after his parents’ divorce. I asked him if he had access to a pastor at his church, any sort of access at all, and he admitted that he did not have access to a pastor and did not even know how to get time with a pastor. What good is a church if someone on staff with a church cannot get time with a pastor?! Counseling never lead him to healing from all his wounds. What he needed was discipleship, a shepherd to guide him through his struggles and point him toward our Healer, Jesus Christ.

Large churches have no excuse. I have heard of and experienced churches trying to do discipleship in this way and that, and the results never seemed to pan out, and usually the excuse is size, that there are just too many people. But the Bible tells us exactly how to do it. Exodus 18:17-26 is where Moses’ father-in-law explains to him that he cannot lead the people alone, but must, “select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain —and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens” (Exo 18:21, NIV). Starting with hundreds of thousands of people, they did this, so even our churches with tens of thousands could do this.

This would not happen quickly, but it could be done. What this means, though, is that churches are training leaders who are able to teach and be responsible for the spiritual growth of others. Most churches appoint facilitators to guide conversations in Bible studies and home groups, but this will never produce discipleship since they are not teachers, nor are they responsible for those under them, nor are they shepherds who care for their flock (no matter what size the flock). Notice the qualifiers above: capable, fearing God, trustworthy, hating dishonest gain. To know if someone met these conditions, we would have to spend intimate time with them.

I need to mention that if more churches were doing this, they would all shrink in size. This may be one of the reasons preachers do not shepherd their parishioners. People would be forced to deal with their sin, but most people going to Christian churches today are going to be entertained or to feel a part of something, not to deal with their sin and grow closer to God. They want to be able to walk in, enjoy the show, and walk out without anyone getting in their business and disrupting what they truly love, their pleasures and comforts that distract them from God. Many of these people are lost in the comforts of life (Luke 8:14, Rev 3:15-18), many still are lost in their hurts and angers and struggles that are not being dealt with spiritually – to be treated with the healing waters of the Holy Spirit (Matt 5:22, 28, 32, 44, 6:14-15, Jam 5:16).

Now I ask you, who leads your church? Is he your personal friend and shepherd, or is he simply a teacher who stands at a distance? Do you want an engaging show with great music and an exciting teacher, or do you want to be challenged spiritually to grow closer to Christ? Do you want a comfortable community that makes you feel like you belong, or a community that is honestly dealing with sin and learning to truly love one another? For the most part, churches give the people what they want (a word of warning, Jer 5:31), so what do you want?

Blessings! – Shamar Covenant

P.S. I have a sequel to this article, with some surprising discoveries about my pastor, but they still do not change what I wrote here.