SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/31/2014 6:47 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Introduction
to 1 Thes. Chapter 2
In today’s SD we will begin to look at the second chapter
of First Thessalonians even though this is not what I had planned to do for
today’s SD.
In Warren’s Wiersbe’s beginning commentary on chapter two
of First Thessalonians he states “Chapter 1 of 1 Thessalonians introduced us to
Paul the Evangelist. This chapter introduces us to
Paul the pastor, for it explains how the great apostle cared for the new
believers in the churches that he founded. Paul considered ‘the care of all the
churches’ (2 Cor. 11:28) a greater burden than all the sufferings and
difficulties he experienced in his ministry (2 Cor. 11:23ff).” I think that this statement should make us
think about how Paul’s mind and spirit worked, for his care for all of the
churches that he founded meant more to him than all of the difficulties that he
went through and those were a lot of difficulties explained in 2 Corinthians
11:23 and following.
Now I am going to next put into this SD something that I
used in an earlier SD when looking at Jeremiah, but the quote came from John
MacArthur’s commentary on 1 Thessalonians. MacArthur writes and spoke about
what kind of man God calls to be one of His Pastors, and when I first looked at
this statement I began to incorporate it to my prayers form the pastors at or
church, for as he states in this statement without the Holy Spirit involved in
a Pastor’s life he would not accomplish anything.
“Praying for Pastors and Leaders
The following is a quote
from John MacArthur’s commentary on the book of 1 Thessalonians.
“Those called to be elders
in the church, who preach, teach and lead God’s flock, are entrusted with the
unequalled duty of proclaiming the gospel to unbelieving sinners, and bringing
those who believe and are baptized into the fellowship of the local
church. There the Holy Spirit will
sanctify them as they worship God in spirit and truth, submitting to the
exposition and application of Scripture.
Pastors also must intercede for their people through public and private
prayer, oversee the administration of the Lord’s Table so their people will
regularly confess their sins and renew their covenant of obedience, equip other
teachers and workers within the church, superintend and enforce church
discipline, and provide biblical counseling to the congregation. All of this spiritual work is to build up the
saints to maturity—‘to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness
of Christ’ (Eph. 4:13).
“The elder must be a
spiritual physician who can capably apply biblical cures to those vices and
heresies that might afflict members of his church. He also must be a tender shepherd who, while
feeding the flock, also heals their wounds, clams their fears, protects them
from spiritual dangers, and comforts them in their distresses. In short, he is to be a champion for biblical
truth (1 Tim. 4:12), a provider of spiritual resources (1 Peter 5:1-2), a
guardian and protector (Acts 20:28-31), and always a model of spiritual virtue
(1 Tim. 4:12), for all of which he is directly accountable to his Lord Jesus
Christ (Heb. 13:17; James 3:1).
“Even the uniquely gifted
apostle Paul asked the question, ‘And who is adequate for these thing?’ (2 Cor. 2:16). He realized that no man could effectively
discharge the immense obligation of spiritual leadership by human wisdom,
effort, and strength alone. He knew that
only God could provide the power to be an effective leader, although he
struggled with his flesh and found himself not doing the things he wanted to do
and doing the things he did not want to do (Rom. 7:14-25). God graciously game him suffering and pain to
continually humble him and make him dependent on divine power (2 Cor.
12:7-10).”
As we go through the first six verses of chapter two we
will find out that these verses speak of what a leader needs to be, and the sad
fact is that there are not many good leaders in the Church today in our
country.
3/31/2014 7:16 PM
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