What’s the Worst Insult You’ve Got?

Mike Leake

It’s no secret that people can be nasty online. Having been writing/blogging for over a decade now I’ve gotten my fair share of insults. I don’t even write incredibly controversial or opinionated pieces, but even still I’ve been torched. I wrote an article awhile back which drew the ire of thousands of people.

I’m not writing today to complain or whine about being flamed by trolls on the internet. That’s comes with the territory. If I write something opinionated then it’s only fair to expect there to be counter-opinions (and on occasion even expressed strongly). I’m writing today because I’ve noticed something about the way in which I’m insulted. I believe a foundational shift has happened and it concerns me.

This was a comment I received in response to a post that had absolutely nothing to do with politics or any social issue.

From just reading your rationale…I have come to the conclusion sir that u would make a good “secretary of crushing Christianity” under the Obama administration!

Now I get my share of comments like this one. And these don’t bother me much at all. They don’t even sting. I just laugh because I’m pretty apolitical. Though I appreciated things like President Obama’s dedication to his marriage I was not a supporter of his presidential policies (especially social issues). I am definitely a social conservative, but I’m also not one to tow the Republican party line. I’m neither Republican or Democrat. And I’m consistently disappointed with evangelical insistence on shacking up with politics for the sake of the kingdom. And I suppose that position often gets me in trouble. Nonetheless, I don’t think I’d make a very good “secretary of crushing Christianity” in the Obama administration.

Yet, something concerns me with that comment and the one’s like it from either side of the political spectrum. When I first started blogging, if you really wanted to give somebody a zinger you’d say they weren’t being faithful to the Bible. If you called somebody a liberal it meant they weren’t being faithful to the text of Scripture. Our insults had to do with fidelity to the Bible and the Christian faith.

Internet trolls and angry bloggers have been around since the beginning of this form of communication. But I believe this change in insults being used is an indicator of a shift in our foundations. We still “test the spirits” but we use different scales. Our first test is no longer biblical fidelity, instead it is fidelity to a political stance. If you really want to say that someone isn’t being faithful to Christ you call them a follower of Obama.

Brothers and sisters, donkeys and elephants are not our standard. We do not “test the spirits” to see if they square up with our political philosophies. There is no worldly system which will be completely faithful to the kingdom of Christ. They are all hollow at some point. Our foundation is on God as He has revealed Himself to us through His Word.

I would be much more encouraged if people disagreed with me and said that I was not biblical on a particular issue. I’m okay with that. At least we are trying to measure one another by the proper stick. But more and more I see people, professing Christian people, dividing based upon party affiliation instead of doctrine. This cannot be good for evangelicals. If the evangel (good news) is not the measuring stick I’m not sure we can really even call ourselves evangelicals. We’ve become something different. And this deeply concerns me.

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Read This! 01.23.18

Mike Leake 1 Comment

4 Assumptions Pastors Can No Longer Make About Church Giving Patterns

I think this is accurate.

Sabbath as a Sermon for the Ambitious

I agree.

The 8 People Americans Trust More Than Their Local Pastor

I can’t say I blame them. With scandals, prosperity shysters, and political bargaining, we haven’t exactly modeled trustworthy behavior. This saddens me, though.

Don’t Make Your Pastor Groan

I appreciate Jared’s words here.

Who is Your Armor-Bearer?

This is so sad and so true. God has placed a few of these in my life and there are still days/weeks where I feel like I could crack.

On the Evangelical Identity Crisis

Labels really don’t matter. But this is worth thinking through.

7 Ways New Preachers Bat from the Wrong Side of the Plate

I’ve found myself stuck in a couple of these ruts a time or two.

Why Repentant Pastors Should Be Forgiven But Not Restored to the Pulpit

I tend to agree with Jonathan Leeman here.

Dr. Wellum answers, “Are there degrees of rewards and punishment in heaven and hell?”

How a Belief in Regenerate Church Membership Should Impact Preaching

Mike Leake 8 Comments

“Wesley, if six weeks in one place, would preach myself and the people dead.”

Those words are from John Venn, a contemporary of Wesley. Alongside other members of the Eclectic society, Venn was discussing the apostles method of preaching. His point was that the local church pastor has a different ministry than a traveling evangelist, like Wesley. The apostles were more like traveling preachers than local church pastors. Therefore to preach like Wesley, week after week, would not lead to healthy sheep.

This is something I must keep in the forefront of my mind as I read through the sermons of Puritans, Edwards, and other Great Awakening heroes. Their congregations were markedly different than the one that I serve. One major difference is that people who are in attendance are here because they want to be (excepting the handful of children dragged here by parents). Those present do not face imprisonment or social shame for not attending.

I love reading books for pastoral ministry that are hundreds of years old. I’m often amazed that these men of old face similar issues that I face in the twenty-first century. Their thoughts, so often grounded in the gospel, are timeless and beneficial. It’s helpful to me to see the same types of issues hundreds of years ago, as it anchors me in eternal truth in the midst of the present streams of culture. But if I’m not careful I can start preaching to a congregation that is not my own.

What I’m meaning to say is that as a Southern Baptist I believe in regenerate church membership. That has to mean something for the way I preach on Sunday mornings. It means that while I expect to have unbelievers in our midst a vast majority of my listeners are going to be those who are followers of Jesus. This is markedly different from those who lived in Puritan England or even in the Deep South of the 1950s.

Revivalistic preaching in previous eras was far more effective because a vast majority of those gathered were Christian by name only. They were there because either social or governmental pressure required their attendance. Thus preaching mostly evangelistic messages about conversion was entirely fitting. But a steady diet of this type of preaching to believers will lead to a shallow and colloquial faith.

If we truly believe that our members are regenerate then we ought to preach in a way that is focused upon feeding the sheep and equipping the saints for the work of ministry. This is not to mean that we are not sensitive to outsiders. Nor does this mean that we do not proclaim and clearly spell out the gospel in every sermon. But it does mean that as we walk through the Scriptures our points of application are not solely focused on how a person is to be saved, but rather how believers ought to live out the Christian life.

If we are constantly trying to get our members saved then we’ve dropped the ball somewhere. I have a suspicion that the real problem is that many professing believers look a bit too much like the world, but rather than treating it as a discipleship problem we treat it as an evangelism problem. And so we keep going with revivalistic preaching and make the whole of the Christian life about where one spends eternity. It is true that we never graduate from the gospel but it is not true that we never graduate from the question of whether or not we are saved. To continue trying to get our members saved and making that the entirety of our preaching ministry will leave our sheep malnourished. And we also had better stop telling people we believe in regenerate church membership.

Shouldn’t a belief in regenerate church membership have an impact on our preaching ministry?

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Why It Was Not Good for Man to Be Alone

Mike Leake 4 Comments

“And it was good…”

Those words reverberate throughout the first two chapters of Genesis. That’s why the hollow thud of Genesis 2:18 packs so much power. “It is not good that the man should be alone.” Those words don’t seem to belong in a pre-Genesis 3 world. Yet, they are here to highlight the importance of the woman to the man. His aloneness is not good.

But what of that aloneness. Why is it not good?

Early in our marriage, in my pre barbeque grill days, I loathed the times when my wife would leave for a few days to visit family. I knew that I had a steady diet of McDonalds, fish sticks, and pizza rolls until she returned. I was helpless without her mad cooking skills. So it was certainly not good that Mike was alone. But this cannot be what the text means. Adam could have been a fine cook, I’m sure.

Maybe it’s not good for Adam because he is a sexual being. Every other creature had a mate. They could all reproduce. But not Adam. Is he burning with sexual desire and so it’s not good for him to be alone? Or is it some other need which Adam has within himself that cannot be met apart from a woman? Is it an emotional need? A physical need? A spiritual need?

Yes and no.

I believe all of those are part of the answer for why it is not good for Adam to be alone. But there is a much greater reason why it’s not good for him to be alone and it’s found in the text. When God said in Genesis 1:26, “Let us make man in our image…” and then in Genesis 1:28 tasked them with being fruitful and multiply and have dominion over the earth he was tasking humanity with spreading His glory throughout the whole world. He was calling upon humanity to accurately image Him.

J.I. Packer puts it this way, referring to the task of the church:

“The task of the church is to make the invisible kingdom visible through faithful Christian living and witness-bearing.” (Concise Theology, 194)

So the fundamental reason why it was not good for Adam to be alone was not because of a need to fulfilled within Adam, but rather because of a deficiency in his ability to accurately image God. He couldn’t make the invisible kingdom visible while he was alone because the invisible kingdom is a community. Adam needed Eve to accurately reflect God.

Yes, we needed a first couple in order to have humanity be fruitful and multiply. But foundational to this is that Adam and Eve needed to live in unity with one another, “the two become one flesh” so that the inter-Trinitarian relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit could be properly modeled.

This is helpful for us to think about with our marriages. Our spouse is not given to us to fundamentally be for us and our enjoyment. It is primarily so that we can live as one flesh and represent the glory of God to the nations. My wife was given to me to help me be more like Jesus and to better represent him. That perspective certainly changes they way I view the purpose of our marriage and the reason God has given me this gift.

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I feel a brief note here is needed to say that I am not intending to say here that one who is single cannot accurately image God. There is not some deficit in you which needs fulfilled by a spouse. Yet, you are called to live in community and to be fruitful and multiply in the ways in which God calls you. More could be said, but I felt a brief note about what I am NOT saying would be wise.

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