August Roundup: 23 Leadership Problems, Sound Doctrine (Part 5), Be the Church.

Written By Kerry & Becky

23 Church Problems Worth Paying Attention To

Not long ago I was thumbing through an old notebook from one of the classes I took several years ago at Harding’s Graduate School of Religion in Memphis. The class was “Spiritual Leadership,” taught by Evertt Huffard.

On the very first day of class, Dr. Huffard identified twenty-three problems that church leaders face. As I reviewed the list, I thought church leaders today might benefit from seeing the list.

Here it is:

  • Lack of spirituality

  • Lack of organization

  • Lack of commitment

  • Failure to develop new leaders

  • Not in touch with the church

  • Defeatism

  • Staus-quo mentality

  • Lack of direction/vision

  • Lack of consistency

  • Inadequate spiritual counseling

  • Inability to resolve conflicts

  • Lack of church discipline

  • Lack of stability

  • Lack of visibility

  • Exhaustion/Burnout

  • Polarized interest groups

  • Resistance to change

  • Legalism

  • No mentoring

  • Protection of power

  • Misread situations

  • Lack of preparation

As you review this list, here are a couple of questions you might ask yourself and of your leadership team:

  1. Which of these problems are presently threatening our church’s leadership team?

  2. Which of these problems need urgent attentionbefore our church can become healthy and growing again?

The first step to solving a problem is surely to identify it.

Only then will follow the creation of steps to resolve it. So, may God bless you as you try to put your finger on some of the potential problems your leadership team may be facing.

Remember this: Healthy churches start with healthy leaders, and as the leadership goes, so goes the church.

God bless you!

—Kerry

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What Is “Sound Doctrine”? (Part Five)

** Here I am in part 5 of this series and still in pursuit of the answer to the question, What constituted “sound doctrine” for the Apostle Paul? In this post, I’m discussing what I discovered when my pursuit took me to the book of Acts.

Why go the the book of Acts?

Because in Acts, Luke often summarized Paul’s preaching during his missionary travels by calling it “the word” or “the word of God.”

So, I went in search of what constituted “the word of God” in Paul’s preaching as Luke gives us a record of his preaching in the book of Acts. My most recent question is this, then: Does Luke give us any clues as to what Paul proclaimed when he preached “the word of God”?

Now, why am I interested in what constituted “the word of God” in Acts?

Let me try to connect the dots. I’m interested in the meaning of “the word of God” in Acts because I think it will help me identify what constituted “the word” in Paul’s letters.

And, why do I care about this?

Because I believe what constituted “the word” for Paul is equivalent to what for him constituted “sound doctrine.”

Now, we are back to square one.

If you’ve been along for the ride in this series of posts you know that the big question I’m trying to answer is, What is “sound doctrine”? In other words: To what does “sound doctrine” refer when Paul used this phrase in the Pastoral Epistles?

You may be wondering why coming to some degree of understanding regarding the answer to this question matters to me. I’ll tell you, eventually, but not now. I’ll save a discussion of the implications of this study for me for later posts. In the meantime, please know how grateful I am to you for thinking through this study with me!

OK. So, what was the content of Paul’s message when Luke wrote in Acts that he preached “the word” or “the word of God”?

First, I went to Acts 14 where Luke informs us that Paul spoke “the word” in Perga (Acts 14:25). Unfortunately, Luke does not indicate in this text what constituted Paul’s message, so I did not find this passage to be much help.

However, I found this interesting: Luke tells us that Paul preached “the word of God” in Salamis (Acts 13:5), Paphos (13:7), Antioch in Pisidia (13:46), Berea (17:13), and Corinth (18:11). These passages were more helpful.

First, let’s go to Salamis on the island of Cyprus. There, Paul proclaimed “the word of God” in the Jewish synagogues (Act 13:5). Luke’s mention of the place where Paul proclaimed the word could be a clue as to the more specific content of his message. It may have been one which he felt the Jews, in particular, needed to hear.

About eighty miles down the road was Paphos, where Luke speaks of a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus, or Elymas, who opposed Paul’s message and tried to turn the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, away from the faith (13:8). After Paul blinded the false prophet, Luke tells us that when the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, “for he was astonished at the teaching about the Lord” (13:11,12).

Placing Acts 13:12 alongside Acts 13:5,7, I’m thinking that “the word of God” surely had to do with “the teaching about the Lord.” But, what was the specific content of Paul’s teaching about the Lord? These verses do not seem to shed much light on the content of either “the word of God” or “the teaching of the Lord,” unless the teaching was about the Lord or from the Lord.

What may be of bigger help to us is looking at a more extensive sample of Paul’s preaching, which is found right there in Acts 13. That chapter tells of what Paul proclaimed in Antioch in Pisidia.

Check out that sermon for yourself. I would say the content of that message was certainly Christ-centered. Paul began his message by recalling God’s interaction with Israel. He recalls how with uplifted arm he led Israel out of Egypt. He recounts more of God’s work in Israel’s history before mentioning Samuel, Saul, and David, key figures in that history.

Then, there is this. Of David’s posterity, Paul said, “God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised”(Acts 13:23). Then, after speaking of Jesus’ death and resurrection, Paul proclaimed: “Let it be known to you therefore, my brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you; by this Jesus everyone who believes is set free from all those sins from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses” (13:38,39).

Luke recounts that the next sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear “the word of the Lord” (13:44). (Again, was this message about the Lord, or from the Lord, or about something else?) When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy. Blaspheming, they contradicted what was spoken by Paul. This is when Paul and Barnabas said to the jealous Jews: “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you. Since you reject it and judge yourselves to be unworthy of eternal life, we are now turning to the Gentiles” (13:46).

Luke tells us that “when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and praised the word of the Lord; and as many as had been destined for eternal life became believers. Thus the word of the Lord spread throughout the region” (13:48,49).

I think we can reason from Paul’s proclamation in Antioch that “the word of God” or “the word of the Lord” had to do with Jesus. How he fulfilled God’s promise to Israel for a Savior. How through him sins were forgiven. About his death and resurrection. It was certainly a Christ-centered message. Wouldn’t you agree?

From Paul’s preaching in Antioch in Pisidia we move on to his preaching in Thessalonica. What he proclaimed there informs what constituted “the word of God” for him, since Luke tells us that “when the Jews of Thessalonica learned that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Beroea as well (note what the “as well” communicates, KWH), they came there too, to stir up and incite the crowds” (Acts 17:13). Did you catch that? According to Luke, “the word of God” which Paul preached in Beroea was the same message he had preached days earlier in Thessalonica.

So, what did Paul preach in Thessalonica? Luke informs us that he taught in the synagogue of the Jews and “argued with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, ‘This is the Messiah, Jesus, whom I am proclaiming to you’”(17:2,3).

Once again, it seems to me that “the word of God” focused on the message of Jesus.

The next reference to “the word of God” in Acts is found in 18:11 where Paul is preaching in Corinth. There, Luke informs us that Paul stayed in Corinth eighteen months, “teaching the word of God.” What constituted this message? Unsurprisingly, Luke adds that it centered around the fact that the Messiah was Jesus (18:5).

Relevant cross-references may be found in a letter Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians. In that letter, Paul declared: “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power” (1 Corinthians 1:17); and “we proclaim Christ crucified” (1:23); and “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (2:2).

Again, “the word of God” which Paul proclaimed in Corinth (Acts 18:11) was most surely the gospel and how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy.

Finally, I want us to go to Acts 16 and look at the conversion of a jailer in Philippi. You recall that Paul and Silas were in prison when a certain jailer asked that most important question, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”The missionaries answered: “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:30,31).

Then, Luke tells us that Paul and Silas “spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who where in his house”(16:32). What was the content of this message? Once again, Luke fails to give us the specifics, but based on the jailer’s response to the message, it must have been about Jesus and how to express belief in him (cf., vv. 33,34).

Alright, let’s try to draw some conclusions from these passages.

After a survey of Luke’s summary of Paul’s proclamation in Acts, here is what I think we can fairly conclude:

—“The word of God,” which Paul preached, was equivalent to “the word of the Lord”;

—“The word of God,” which Paul preached centered on the gospel, the Christian message, the story of Jesus—who he was, what he did and accomplished, and how he fulfilled what was predicted by the prophets of old.

What do you think? Does this make sense to you?

Now, I know this has been a lengthy post, but if you will hang with me for just a bit longer, I want to say a few words about the grammar of that phrase, “the word of God.”

Perhaps grammar will help us understand better what Luke and Paul wanted to say about “the word.”

What is the function or purpose of that two-word adjectival phrase, “of God” in the phrase, “the word of God? It describes “the word,” doesn’t it? It tells us something about “the word.” But, what?

Here are the leading options:

  • Option #1: Are Luke and Paul telling us that “the word” belongs to God? (Please pardon me for inserting a little bit of Greek grammar here, but for you second year Greek students, this would make “of God” a Genitive of Possession. It would mean that what Paul preached was “God’s word.”)

  • Option #2: Or, are they telling us that God is the subject that produced the action implied in “the word”? That is, are they telling us that “the word” is from him? That he is its source? (This would make that phrase a Subjective Genitive in Greek grammar.)

  • Option #3: Or, are they telling us that God is the one who received the action implied in “the word.” That he is the object of the message? That is, that “the word” is aboutGod? (This would make the phrase an Objective Genitive.)

Or, are Luke and Paul saying that “the word of God” is a little bit about all three! That the message which Luke says Paul proclaimed is God’s message, is from God, and is about God?

I don’t know. Perhaps grammar does not help us very much in trying to determine what specifically constituted “the word of God.”

I do believe, however, that in his Acts’ narratives Luke has helped me understand what constituted “the word of God.” I’m thinking it’s about the story of Jesus.

What do you think?

—Kerry

👉 Again, I would be pleased to hear your thoughts on these posts! Hit reply, or send me an email.

Be. The. Church.

Four times over the last couple of months I have been talking with people who independently shared with me the profound difference their home churches had made in their lives.

Each of these adults shared different, yet similar, early childhood and teenage experiences they had survived in homes fraught with trauma, abuse, and dysfunction. Instead of growing and flourishing, they each were required to provide for themselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually, which ultimately required them to live their childhood in survival mode.

BUT, they also shared about their church homes.

In these communities of faith they found people who stepped up for them and helped.

They provided love, hugs, consistent presence, affirmation, support, and care as well as guidance, mentoring, re-directing, and godly role models. For the first time these children, now adults, saw healthy marriages, experienced safe love, witnessed dad’s telling their children that they “loved them,” witnessed healthy parenting, and began to understand trust was possible in this world. They learned that the way they grew up was not the way everyone grows up. They began to learn that “family” doesn’t hurt. They learned the difference between shame and love.

These four adults are now faithful disciples of Jesus. And some of them are dedicating their lives to helping others know about him! With all of the disadvantages they grew up with, they saw firsthand how Jesus makes a difference.

These conversations have had a profound impact on me! Since then, I have dreamed about what would happen if God’s people REALLY learned to love the unlovable. Unlovable like us. What would happen if, instead of disdain or “bless your heart, tsk, tsk” shaming responses, we developed hearts and eyes for those who need our Lord’s love?

What would happen if our mission to share the good news was not just a Bible study but a long-term, consistent, loving, caring relationship with a child or teen?

What would happen if brokenness in others became a place we gladly stepped into instead of away from? What would happed if we really became the hands and feet of Jesus in the lives of others who are living in chaos, dysfunction, heartbreak, and harsh disadvantage? What would happen if we begged God to help us see people the way he sees them?

The world would change.

Oh friends, let’s not just wonder and dream. Let’s start a radical movement in our churches of loving like Jesus!

—Becky

Kerry & Becky
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July Roundup: Sound Doctrine (Part 4), Advice for Leaders, and On Calling Balls and Strikes.