By: The Rev. Dr. W. Ross Blackburn

This meditation is probably less for our people, and more for us who teach and shepherd the people of God through our teaching. I imagine that the lion’s share of those of us who are ordained into the ministry of teaching have taken pause at James’ words. I am sure of it.

One of our great responsibilities as teachers is to wisely discern the weight of the Scriptures, to discern God’s mind so that we can lead our people to love what God loves and hate what God hates. And, insofar as we are able and God gives us insight, why God loves what He loves and hates what He hates.

The reason for bringing this up is to counter what seems to me to be a fragmentation in the way that (generally speaking) pastors approach matters close to God’s heart. Abortion and issues concerning life are a good example of this. Too often we consider abortion as an “issue” (and a political one at that). When we do this, we in effect give ourselves a reason for setting it aside as peripheral. After all, there are a myriad of important “issues” in the world, and we can’t address them all. But the life of the vulnerable is never peripheral or tangential to the Gospel. Defending the fatherless and pleading for the widow are at the heart of what it means to know God and to be His people. The form of the marital relationship between a husband and a wife is likewise not an “issue,” but a gift of God that serves as a picture of the Gospel—the love of Christ for His bride, the church. Childbearing and childrearing, family, the form of motherhood and fatherhood—all these things get to the heart of the Gospel and what it means to be the people of God. How so?

Many of us know all this. Many of our people do not. We live in an age of many “issues,” and an age when we address these issues by finding verses and proof-texts that seem to pertain to them. What we need is a teaching of the whole counsel of God that rightly discerns the Lord’s heart, and shows how the Gospel is connected with those concerns that press most heavily upon His heart.

The call is not optional. It is basic to what it means to be a teacher. And we will be judged accordingly. May we be faithful to seek to learn from God and from one another.