Pragmatic Ministry Is A Prostitution Mindset
We tend to look at ministry primarily in a pragmatic way. Our mindset is: “What must we do in order to build a church?”
Unfortunately, “build” often is over-simplified to “how to draw a crowd of any kind”.
This attitude promotes the idea that as long as we don’t absolutely need it for success then we shouldn’t worry about it. If we don’t need certain ethics1 in order to draw a crowd then we don’t need to break a sweat over those issues. If we don’t see a need of various areas of theology and doctrine2 then there is no reason for us to get bogged down in those discussions. After all “doctrine divides” is what we’re told.
The only things that matters are those that gather a group. We adopt the motto that “belonging before believing”.3 This results in sacrificing those things that matter for believing in order to make someone feel belonging first.
To put it bluntly: This mindset is the mindset of treating God like a prostitute.
We use Him for our desires and goals. We don’t marry Him. We don’t take all of Him. We use Him and His Word only for what we want and we spit out the rest.
There is much wrong with this. And it is no merely wrong but it is wicked, depraved, sinful, and worthy of wrath. Yet, how many of us fall into this way of ministry—myself included.4
When this mindset is adopted we fall into false conclusions that God has given to us because of something we did. Therefore, instead of truly giving God all the glory we hold much back for ourselves. If we weren’t the way we were then God couldn’t have done what He did. He needed us in order to spread His kingdom.
This results in what we call “heresy”.5
A Vastly Different Approach To Ministry
This brings up Acts 3:12. In context, Peter and John are going to the Temple at the hour for prayer. They come across a man who was lame from birth. The lame man requests financial aid from the apostles but they return with an even greater answer. In the name of Jesus, they speak words of life and raise this man to walk again.
It is clearly a miracle which supernaturally reveals the works of the ascended Christ who is still at work through the Holy Spirit.
Obviously, people are stunned and amazed. They gather around to witness what happened. Peter sees this as the time to preach the gospel. And when he preaches, he opens up by telling the people that they ought not to be amazed at them but rather at the Christ who was rejected, crucified, risen, and ascended in Heaven. It was in the name of Jesus that they did this act. It was His action through them for His glory.
But what was the reason why this happened? On what basis was this performed? Why these men rather than others? Peter gives the reason in Acts 3:12 when he says, “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk?”
Notice that Peter is responding to some common thoughts. Did God do this work through them because of their own power? Was it because of their own piety?
R.C. Sproul gives a great comment on this text by bringing up what several of the Jews had thought during those days. “Rabbinic tradition spoke of individuals of such exceptional piety that God was obligated to grant their prayers, but Peter and John hastened to deflect attention from themselves and to insist that Jesus, the suffering and vindicated Servant of the Lord, was the agent of this healing, because of His resurrection power.”6
Eckhard Schnabel is also helpful with his commentary on this verse when he says, “Peter protests that the miracle has not happened because he has somehow manipulated God, through the power of his prayer or the magnitude of his piety, to heal the man.”7
Peter is rebuking the men of those days and the Holy Spirit is rebuking us today. God is never manipulated. No one forces His Hand (Dan. 4:35). He alone is sovereign (Ps. 115), self-sufficient (Acts 17:24-27; Rom. 11:33-36), and impassible (Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29; Mal. 3:6; James 1:17). There is nothing in God that is needy. All He does in the work of salvation He does in, with, and through us by grace alone.
When Peter says it was not their “power” he means that it was not any ability they had. It was not any particular giftedness. It was not because they had some sort of miraculous power in themselves. God alone had the power and God alone did the work even as He worked through Peter and John.
Whenever God equips people with gifts to serve the Church it is always God sovereignly working through someone rather than someone manipulating God with their gifts. It is never us plus a little bit of God. Nor is it ever God plus a little bit of us. It is sovereignly God working through people. He provides the gifts (James 1:17). He provides the opportunities (Col. 4:3). He provides the desires (Ps. 37:4). Yes, we work out what he has gifted us with. At the same time, all working out is because He is working in us (see Phil. 2:12-13). It is the deadly error of Hyper-Calvinism that thinks that we ought to sit back until God works since He alone is sovereign. That wouldn’t match up with what Peter and John did by not only speaking but acting (Acts 3:4-7).
Peter also says that it was not their “piety” that made this man walk. This is a really important one for today. Often we can think that God does a great work in proportion to our holiness. In other words, our holiness is the gasoline to God’s ministry tank. The amount that we have is the furthest He can go.
This word for “piety” means fear of God, godliness, and being devout to God and His ways. Peter is saying that God didn’t do this miracle because he and John were pious enough.
Was Robert Murray McCheyne Right Or Wrong?
This brings up a popular quote from Robert Murray McCheyne once said:
“In great measure, according to the purity and perfection’s of the instrument, will be success. It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.”
We need to be careful with this so as not to twist what McCheyne is saying nor to contradict Holy Scripture.
To be very clear: I love Robert Murray McCheyne. He and the Bonar boys have greatly affected by walk with Christ. I would heartily recommend any of the works and sermons of McCheyne to you!
But, we must deal with this quote.
McCheyne would be unbiblical if he meant that the level of our holiness is the level of success that God is constrained to. He would be wrong if he meant that God could only work through us depending on how much piety we have. He would also be wrong if God was reacting and responding to our piety or that our piety had manipulated God into acting.
At the same time, one would be wholly unbiblical and promoting wickedness if they said that holiness doesn’t matter. How truly un-God-like (Rom. 6:1)! One must never say that holiness doesn’t matter. Holiness is commanded (Heb. 12:14; 1 Pet. 1:16). Holiness is blessed (Lev. 26). Holiness is the fruit of delighting in God (Jn. 15:1-7).
Nevertheless, it would be equally unbiblical to say that God can and does only bless us because of our piety. After all, if we really wanted to press it further, all holiness is only the work of God in us. In this line of thought, if He were to bless us because of our holiness He would not be dependent on us but on Himself and His work.
When it comes to thinking about ministry success we need to remember that holiness often provokes persecution (Acts 6-7; 17:1-9; 2 Tim. 3:12). Many might be tempted to fire Paul after his work in Thessalonica and critique him for not be contextual or missional or winsome enough.
Peter makes it clear that the fruit of ministry is not because of our piety. Piety is the result of God ministering to us and in us through the means of grace. Matthew Henry is right when he says, “What holiness any of them had it was wrought in them, and they could not pretend to merit by it.”8
A Better Interpretation Of McCheyne
We ought to pursue godliness and giftedness zealously for God’s glory. While pursuing these we must never lose our dependence upon His sovereign grace. God alone does the work (1 Cor. 3:6). Godliness is an end in itself and not for prostituting for ministry success. It is true that “vital godliness” is an ethos to our ministry—and inseparable from quality ministry. But, this is not because God is dependent on our piety.
We need to stop promoting a man-centered approach in the name of Reformed theology. Sometimes we hear men speak about the minister’s holiness in ways that come across as if God is hamstrung until we reach certain levels of holiness. That only promotes self-obsession and introspection.
This is not at all to discount the innumerable places in the Bible where holiness, godliness, and piety is commanded. Let the antinomians be rebuked!
At the same time, let’s not fall into blatant legalism and Pharisaical mindset. God is not and never is dependent on us. We ought not to diminish the beauty of piety by talking about it as merely a means to ministry success. Too often this can communicate that it is solely for the sake ministry. It is then that we produce men and women who care less for God and more for ministry success.
Yes, God does bless us as we grow in piety. God loves to graciously bless the work He has sovereignly produced. But, our success is not correlative to our growth in grace. After all, are we really willing to say that those who have the biggest churches are the most holy? Or, are we willing to say that those who have the most holy “holy huddles” are the most holy?
Let God determine the width of ministry. We must be faithful to Him and strive for depth. This depth is to be in godliness and giftedness, discipleship and evangelism, a biblical worldview and fellowship, Word and Deed. But only God can’t grant us all of this. It is only by the ascended Jesus Christ working through the Holy Spirit that we can have depth and width.
If McCheyne meant that God blesses our ministry because He is dependent on our holiness9, that He can only grant fruit if we’re at a certain piety level10, or that He is waiting for us to become something before He can work—then this appears to contradict Acts 3:12. If he meant that piety is beautiful in itself because it is the life of God in the soul of man11, that God sovereignly and freely blesses ministry when people overflow with delight in God12, that God is not dependent on our piety but delights to bless the work He has produced, and that God desires to most often use those who have grown in glorifying Him and enjoying Him forever13—then McCheyne is correct.
After all, did God not prophesy through some unbelievers and actively rebellious believers to bring about His purposes?14
Personal piety is much needed in gospel ministers, elders, and deacons. And local churches sink to low states when these leaders are not growing in piety. At the same time, we agree with the Heidelberg Catechism in question 114 when it says that “even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience”.15 The proper biblical emphasis on pursuing piety ought to make one dependent on God’s grace, full of love for Christ, delight in the gospel of grace, zealous for good works, humble when observing all fruit, realistic when recognizing one’s continued struggle with indwelling sin and temptation, and honest when recognizing that glorification only happens at the Beatific Vision.
It is not because of our giftedness or godliness that God depends on in order to spread the kingdom. He needs no one. He graciously uses His people. None of us ought to despair yet none of us ought to put aside the pursuit of holiness. The way in which He typically uses us is through our growth in piety not because of our growth in piety. Even those who epically fail like Samson, David, Mannaseh, Jephthah, Paul, Rahab, Ruth, and Peter can still be greatly used by God.
Let us praise God for all growth in piety but let us never think that God has blessed our ministry because He is dependent on our power or piety. There is a grand difference between thinking that our godliness or giftedness manipulates God to act than recognizing that God delights to grow us in piety and power and to work through the very work He has sovereignly produced.
Those ethics today are sex and sexuality, marriage, life in the womb, justice, ethnicity, men and women, and several others.
The doctrines of: God’s full sovereignty in salvation; God’s aseity, simplicity, immutability, impassibility; The Trinity; the Inerrancy and Sufficiency of Scripture; Total Depravity and The Fall; Hell; Covenant Theology; Reformed justification and sanctification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone; Complementarianism; Baptism and the Lord’s Supper; Eschatology.
To be clear, belonging and believing both matter. It is true that many times the Lord uses the love of Christians through Word and Deed in order to influence someone to think more about the gospel. In the end, only the Holy Spirit grants faith—not our efforts at making someone belong. But, while believing and belonging both matter in ministry, there is no true belonging unless someone believes. Wasn’t this a massive theme in the Old Testament? Wasn’t this one of the major matters of debate in Galatians? If we hold belonging to be more important than believing then we might develop a type of culture where we kindly escort someone to Hell because we fail to speak about the gospel.
I am using the pronouns “we” and “us” because I am preaching this to myself as well.
This is not to say that everyone who says “belonging before believing” is a heretic. Though they are greatly mistaken this does not mean that this is a heresy. This is saying that this mindset that can result in functional heresy of living like God is dependent on us or outright heresy in teaching that God is dependent on us.
R. C. Sproul, ed., The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition) (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2015), 1917.
Eckhard J. Schnabel, Acts, Expanded Digital Edition., Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 208.
Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 2073. Henry goes on to say, “The instruments of God’s favour to us, though they must be respected, must not be idolized; we must take heed of reckoning that to be done by the instrument which God is the author of.”
Contradicting Acts 17:24-25.
At what maturity level are we mature enough?
Gal. 2:20
2 Chronicles 14-16 with Asa, 17-20 with Jehoshaphat, 23:16-23 with Jehoiada, 29-32 with Hezekiah, 34-35 with Josiah.
The entire Book of Acts shows how those who preached the gospel of grace that resulted in much blessing were those overflowed with delight in Christ.
Numbers 22 with Balaam, Jonah during his extreme bitterness in Jonah 3, Caiaphas in John 11, John 19 with Pilate and the inscription on the Cross.
1 John 1:8-10; Rom. 7:14-15; Eccl. 7:20; 1 Cor. 13:9.