The Demise of the Didaskalos

Some time ago I was asked to read a paper at the American Bible Society in New York. As I was preparing the paper someone asked me what I was doing and I told them that I was writing a paper on the “Ethnic Identity of Luke” which I was to read at a meeting of scholars in New York. Obviously puzzled, my interlocutor pressed further: “But I thought you were a pastor. Why are you doing that?”

I was disappointed by their response but not surprised. We have witnessed in our lifetime the demise of the didaskalos (Greek for “teacher”), the disappearance of the model of the pastor as the church’s chief teacher. This has happened despite the obvious importance of the role of teacher in the New Testament (the word occurs over 80 times in the noun form alone), and despite the long history of the pastor as scholar (academic regalia was originally clerical garb). When Paul, in Ephesians 4:11, lists the various ministerial callings, he employs a Greek grammatical structure (the definite article tous) to let the reader know when he has moved to a new item in the list. “And he gave some to be (tous) apostles, and (tous) prophets, and (tous) evangelists, and (tous) pastor-teachers.” Paul’s grammar (the distributive use of the article) makes it clear that he is describing one thing, not two.

But in today’s church that signal role and function has largely been lost, the victim of an anti-intellectualism that mistakenly (and arrogantly) regards thinking as an act of unbelief. In today’s church, we don’t go to church to think, we go to church to feel. That’s why the role of pastor as teacher has largely given way to the role of pastor as therapist. The pastoral care movement in the seminaries has to take some responsibility here. Psychology has replaced theology as the core of the seminary’s curriculum, and the pastor as scholar/teacher has been supplanted by the pastor as therapist/systems specialist. And so we get nonsense elevated to dogma like, “They’ll care how much you know when they know how much you care.” Take that out of church and put it in the operating room and see if you still like it! When my surgeon is standing over me with a scalpel, I care how much she knows, even if I don’t know how much she cares! What we do in church is at least as important as what we do in hospital.

Moreover, the damage done to the church by the loss of this pastoral model is cumulative and self-perpetuating. This is because the primary work of the church is disciple-making, and that, first and finally, is a function of disciplines that are didactic in nature: formation, enculturation, and yes, dare I say it?…indoctrination. That’s because becoming a disciple involves embracing, indeed entering, a whole new world Jesus called “the Kingdom of God” whose vision and values are so counterintuitive and countercultural that it’s like living in a different culture. No, it’s not “like” that, it is that. You don’t do that in a day; you don’t do that without help; and you don’t do that with a “Church Lite” minimalist approach to Christian formation that produces a congregation a mile wide and an inch deep. As Will Willimon quips: “There is no way that I can crank the gospel down to the level where any American can walk in off the street and know what it is all about within fifteen minutes. One can't even do that with baseball! You have to learn the vocabulary, the rules, and the culture in order to understand it. Being in church is something at least as different as baseball.”

And that’s why the role, the primary role, of the pastor is to be the church’s teacher: to teach the congregation to own the disciplines, stories, rituals, rules, images, and practices of this new culture called church. According to Matthew whose primary image for Jesus was “Teacher,” virtually the last thing Jesus told the church was: “Go into all the world and make disciples.” Then, he told us how to do it: “…by baptizing them, and teaching them.”

Any questions?

The Gospel According to Bruce

I've been laid up for a few days with the flu, and that's given me a rare opportunity to catch up on my mindless entertainment. Translate that "movie rentals." And among the cache of vapid videos was a little story from 2003 called Bruce Almighty.

In the movie the lead character is a self-absorbed, shallow, superficial television personality (isn't that a redundancy?). Exasperated with life’s little frustrations, in a thoughtless moment he prays a prayer he soon lives to regret. He says that he could run the universe much better than God can. And so God (Morgan Freeman in the film) takes up the challenge and gives Bruce all his powers for a limited period of time. The only restraint on his divine powers is that he cannot override free will.

Well, Bruce soon sees that running the universe is not as easy as he thought. Characteristically, he lavishes his new-found powers on himself, on the shallow and superficial, and without regard either for other persons or the complex interconnected character of all things. Soon, he’s made a mess – disrupted the tides by lassoing the moon to pull it close to the earth merely for a romantic evening with his girl friend; answering everybody’s prayers “yes” without regard to the fact that prayers are not only multiple, but competitive requests. The lottery goes bust because everybody wins! In his self-absorbed appetite for “winning,” he winds up losing everything that’s important to him; namely, the woman he loves.

Desperate to right things, he gets out of his car, falls to his knees and prays to God to take back his awful gift: “God, I submit; I surrender!” he says. “I give in; You’re God and I’m not! I understand now.” But as he’s praying, he neglects to realize that he’s fallen down to pray in the middle of a busy highway. He’s hit by a truck and killed.

Opening his eyes in the afterlife, he stands before God confessing what a mess he’s made of things and how desperately he wants to right things again, to make Grace, his appropriately named girl friend, love him again. He pleads: “How can you make somebody love you without without destroying their free will?” And God smiles and wryly responds, “Welcome to my world.” Acknowledging that Grace prays daily and is an accomplished pray-er, he says: “I wish I could be more like her.” God says, “Why don’t you try it?” His first attempt is typically shallow and self-absorbed: “God, please make Grace love me again. I want her back. I’ll do anything to get her back!” God listens patiently, and then says: “That’s a prayer?”

And so he tries again, this time without regard to his wants or his desires, thinking only of Grace and her welfare: “Dear God,” he says, “I know I’ve been bad for Grace, that I too late came to prize her and her love for me. I’ve not been good either to her or for her. I’m asking You now for the only thing that really matters to me – Grace’s happiness. Help her to find someone who will be worthy of her, who will love her as she should be loved, who will celebrate and enjoy the wonderful person that she is, who will see her through Your eyes.”

And God looks at him and says, “Now, that’s a prayer!”

It's the "Gospel According to Bruce." You see, the gospel is not about “winning and losing;” it’s about losing and thereby winning. It's both counterintuitive and countercultural.

To my surprise, Bruce Almighty really is a good little story. No, that's not true. It's The Story.

Essentially Essene?

I’ve been re-reading my book, Where Jesus Walked, in preparation for leading a group back to Israel this Spring, and the chapter on “The Cenacle” (the Upper Room where Jesus had the Last Supper with the disciples) has reminded me all over again just how important it is to read the Bible historically and contextually. In Mark’s Gospel, the story of the Last Supper is told with some rather strange plot twists. For example, Mark says that Jesus gave rather secretive instructions to two disciples about where they were to go to prepare the Passover for him and his disciples. “Go into the city, and a man shall meet you carrying a jar of water. Follow him, and wherever he should enter, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, ‘Where is my guestroom where I am to eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a great upper room (cenaculum in the Latin Vulgate, hence, The Cenacle) furnished and ready; and there prepare (the Passover) for us.’” Strange. Quotes within quotes, instructions within instructions? Why all the secrecy?

Believe it or not, the Dead Sea Scrolls probably provide the answer. The Essenes (whom most scholars believe left us the Scrolls) were an eschatological messianic protest group of first century Jews who withdrew from the larger culture which they perceived to be bankrupt to the shores of the Dead Sea there to await the dawning of the Age to Come and the Kingdom of God which they believed to be imminent. A contemplative, reflective monastic community, they lived their common life according to a very different vision and set of values than those that dominated the Jerusalem of their day which had largely become secular and settled with little if any interest in the Age to Come. But the Essenes ate together, prayed together, studied together and remembered that though they were in the world, they were not of it. They sang songs of faith and hope. Their favorite was “This World is Not My Home; I’m Just A-Passin’ Through.” (All right; I made that part up, but you get the idea.)

My wife is an avid gardener. I’m her not-so-cheap labor. She tells me where to install the plants and I dutifully dig the hole, put in the peat and perlite, and place the plant carefully in the hole. But knowing her as I do, just about the time the plant has gotten settled in and comfortable in its new home, she’ll find a better place for it, so I have to dig it up, move it to its new place, and do the whole planting thing all over again. And so now when I put a plant in the ground, while I’m patting the dirt around its feet, I have a little conversation with it. I say: “Now, don’t get too comfortable!” The Essenes would have understood that.

In the text of Mark, there are several interesting tidbits that suggest that Jesus and his disciples might have had much in common with the Essenes' eschatological concerns even to the point of being structured and organized as a community similar to the Essenes. The secrecy surrounding the preparation of the Passover suggests that Jesus and the Twelve, like the Essenes with their otherworldly, counter-cultural concerns, were not altogether welcome in staid, settled, secular Jerusalem. And notice: Jesus tells his disciples to say to the master of the house, “The Teacher says, ‘Where is my guest room?” The Essenes referred to their leader as “The Teacher of Righteousness.” Indeed, in Mark’s Gospel “Teacher” is the disciples' favorite address for Jesus.

And what about the waterjar? Jerusalem was a big city in the first century. How could the disciples be expected to identify the one man carrying a waterjar who was to lead them to the upper room? In truth, such a man would have stood out like a sore thumb because men didn’t carry waterjars in that world; women did…unless, of course, they lived in a monastic community where there were no women.

And finally, we know from both archaeology and historical sources that the Essenes had an extensive presence in the city of Jerusalem during the reign of Herod the Great but most of them withdrew and formed a monastic community in the desert following his death in 4 B.C. But perhaps not all of them did. On Mount Zion, near the site of the modern-day Benedictine Dormition Abbey and The Cenacle, archaeologists have unearthed an ancient gate to the city which they called “The Gate of the Essenes.”

Was Jesus an Essene? No, but he shared with them the view that this world as we know it is history and the dawning of the Age of the Kingdom means that we can never again feel “at home” in this world. And so, like the Essenes, he formed a community, a colony really, of the Kingdom. But unlike the Essenes he chose to plant his colony in the world so that like salt and light and leaven they could permeate the planet with the promise that “the kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever.”

I’ll stand there in that upper room in a few months with a group of modern day disciples, and we’ll read this text and remember what happened in that room – how Jesus, for the last time, broke the bread and drank the wine and ate the Supper with his disciples…’til He comes.

"Converts or Christians?"

I’ve never met Bill Hybels, but I like him. Hybels, as you know, is the founding pastor of the megachurch Willow Creek and is, arguably, also the founder of the so-called seeker church movement. Twenty-five years ago Hybels went door-to-door in suburban Chicago and asked people: Why don’t you go to church? He listened carefully to their responses and then fashioned his “seeker-sensitive” church to meet the perceived needs (or wants) of the seeker (some might say “customer”).

Now, a quarter of a century later Hybels and his staff commissioned a study of their church and its seeker model to gauge how successful they’d actually been. To say that the findings were disappointing would be an understatement. “It rocked my world,” Hybels said, to discover that a quarter of the people at his megachurch were either “stalled” in their spiritual growth or dissatisfied with the church and were considering leaving. His seeker-sensitive, entertainment-oriented, minimalist-content approach to church had created a congregation that was a mile wide and an inch deep, and he didn’t like it. To his credit, Hybels went public with his findings in a new book he published with Greg Hawkins, Willow Creek’s Executive Pastor, titled Reveal: Where Are You? The findings are instructive for everyone who cares about the Church of Jesus Christ.

Hybels, to his disappointment and chagrin, discovered that the seeker model had failed to deliver as promised; that people want to go deeper than the seeker model is designed to take them; and that they thought that more serious and disciplined Bible and doctrine study was the way to take them there. Moreover, Hybels discovered that people were leaving his megachurch to become Presbyterians or Lutherans or Episcopalians – ecclesiastical traditions that intentionally and purposefully connect people up with the 2,000-year history, ritual, and culture of the Christian faith. There is a difference, it seems, between making converts and making Christians.

And here’s why. The buzzword in the seeker model is “connections.” A primary strategy of church growth is to help people “make connections” with their group, whatever that “group” is. It is predicated on the assumption that if you can hook people by connecting them up to a group (any group it seems!), you’ve got them and your church will grow. True enough. But what Hybels found out is that connecting people up with each other doesn’t necessarily mean that you are connecting them up with God. That’s because the shape of the Church is cruciform. The Church, if it is the Church, connects us not only with each other (the horizontal dimension of Church), but also with God (the vertical dimension of Church). Leave out the latter and you don’t have the Church, just a club.

And the way you connect them up to God is not by entertaining them, but by enculturating them…by putting them in God’s Word (serious, substantive, historical Bible study), by teaching them the “faith once delivered to the saints” (the collective tradition, rituals, images, stories, and culture of the Christian faith), and by giving them the opportunity to be Christian rather than just sound Christian (to learn to empty their pockets for somebody else’s kids; to keep their promises even when it’s inconvenient; to do the right thing even when it’s not politically or professionally expedient; to touch the untouchable; to advocate for the Gospel as though there were something at stake). The Church can do that; a club can’t.

It was Dallas Willard, I believe, who quipped: “We act as though Jesus told us to ‘Go into all the world and make converts.’ He didn’t. He said: ‘Go into all the world and make disciples.’” That’s harder; it takes longer; and the way you do it is by both baptizing them and teaching them.

It’s not too late, Bill. It’s never too late!

"It's Just a Number"

I had my yearly physical recently, the annual indignity indicative of the irresistible advance of aging. I had my first physical at age 40 (Am I making my point?). My physician, sensing my angst at having hit my 57th birthday (Ever notice that nobody “hits” their 20th birthday?), tried to be supportive: “Well Wayne, it’s just a number. All in all, you’re in pretty good shape…for a man your age.” I know she was trying to be encouraging, but what I heard was: “Geez, I can’t believe you’re still here!”

I was feeling pretty sorry for myself when I called my friend. He’s an octogenarian who is traveling with me to Israel and Egypt this May and had some concerns about whether or not he could manage the physical demands of the trip. Actually, to quote my physician, “He’s in pretty good shape, for a man his age.” I called to reassure him that I had taken people his age before and that I was confident that he would have no difficulty physically making the trip.

But what amazed me about the conversation was the quality of the mind I encountered on the other end of the line. My friend is engaging, articulate, interesting, and substantive. He reads voraciously, and I don’t mean light, fluffy reading either. He devours C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, G. K. Chesterton, the Christian classics, and of course, the Scriptures. He thinks big thoughts; he asks big questions; he’s a serious person. He’s not morose, and he’s certainly not boring. He has a wonderful smile, a quick wit, and a delightful sense of humor. What I mean by “serious person” is that he sees life as both a wondrous gift and a sacred responsibility. There’s nothing shallow or superficial about him.

He’s always wanted to make the pilgrimage to Israel and is reading my book, Where Jesus Walked, in preparation for the trip. He said: “There are so many places the New Testament talks about that I have to see for myself. I’ve got all these questions. Is it okay if I ask questions?” I know people in their 30’s and 40’s who’ve never asked a big question in their lives…not one! And there’s my friend, in his 80’s, with a quiver full of questions…still asking, still seeking, still knocking, still consumed with a “got to know!” He makes me feel alive just talking to him.

Everybody ages; it’s relentless and inevitable. Humans too are governed by the second law of thermodynamics – entropy. We run down; we wear out. But while aging can be tracked “by the numbers,” getting “old” is not so easily measured. Maybe my physician was right. Maybe it is just a number.

“So what are you reading these days?” I asked him. “Thomas á Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ,” he said. Figures.

"The Ouija Board Bible"

When I was a kid there was a popular game called Ouija Board. The board was printed with letters, numbers, and symbols to which a movable indicator points supposedly in answer to questions put by participants at a séance. The fingers were placed on a pointer that moved about the board to spell out messages the board was sending to the participants. To my dismay I discovered that the only messages I ever received were the ones I sent to myself. That is, I tended to find on the Ouija Board exactly what I was looking for.

It occurs to me that something similar is now going on in the name of biblical interpretation. There is a popular, widely-held notion that if I just let my fingers wander through the Bible, much like a séance I can summon up God’s presence to give me just the word I need, or perhaps more to the point, just the word I was looking for. I sometimes hear people say: “The Lord gave me a verse,” and then they’ll quote a verse of the Bible, completely without context, as though the Divine Voice bypassed the inspired author and spoke through the pages and across the centuries directly to them, unfettered by the difficult and laborious business of biblical interpretation. How convenient.

But when evangelical Christians talk about the inspiration of the Scripture, we mean that God’s Spirit spoke through (which is what “inspiration” means) particular biblical writers who lived long ago and far away in another time and place and culture, and who spoke another language, who held a very different worldview from mine, and who did the best they could to interpret for their audience what they heard God saying to them. That is to say, when I read the Bible today, I am overhearing a conversation not originally intended for me but for someone else. And yet when I eavesdrop, as it were, on that conversation long ago and far away, it occurs to me: “You know, I think I hear a word of God in there for me too!” This latter phenomenon is what we call illumination rather than inspiration. Only the biblical writers were inspired. But when we “overhear” those inspired biblical writers speak God’s word to someone else who lived long ago and far away God’s Spirit continues to speak, across the centuries and cultures and languages, through those inspired writers, an authentic word of God for us too. But notice: that will only happen when I give appropriate attention to the original, inspired author’s message and meaning. The Bible doesn’t mean whatever I want it to mean, or whatever I happen to find there; it means, first and foremost, what the inspired writer meant when he wrote under the inspiration and moving of the Holy Spirit.

And so, if I’m really interested in hearing a word from God, and not just my own little voice echoed in the pages of the Bible, I must first ask, “What did it mean?” before I can move on to ask, “What does it mean?” (to quote Harvard Dean, Krister Stendahl) and that question takes me into the difficult, demanding, and disciplined world of contextual, historical, biblical interpretation. Anything else, and I may as well be playing Ouija Board.