Episode 145: On Preparing for a Tough Political Season (Part 1)
How can pastors best prepare for a tough political season? In this episode of Pastors Talk, Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman talk through twelve ways pastors can hold firm to their beliefs and shepherd their congregation well during political division. They emphasize the importance of recognizing the existential threats they may face and discuss how pastors should speak truth to their congregation, not succumbing to fear or worship of political leaders. They address straight-line versus jagged-line issues and how pastors should approach both. They finish by talking about Christian freedom and fighting for the church more than you fight for an election outcome.
- 12 Ways Pastors Can Prepare for a Tough Political Season
- Recognize the Existential Threats
- Speak What You Know and Don’t Succumb to Fear
- Don’t Worship Political Leaders or Movements
- Straight Line v. Jagged Line Issues
- Advocate for Christian Freedom But Beware of Its Weakness
- Fight for the Church
On Preparing for a Tough Political Season (Part 1)
The following is a lightly edited transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Jonathan Leeman:
Hi, I am Jonathan Leeman,
Mark Dever:
And I am Mark Dever.
Jonathan Leeman:
And welcome to this episode of Nine Mark’s Pastors Talk. Nine marks exist to equip pastors, and church leaders pastors, but a little more broadly with biblical resources for building healthy churches.
Mark Dever:
I, it’s been a few months since we’ve done this and you’ve kind of forgotten a little how we do it.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, you handed me something to read. Don’t worry. Not right now.
Mark Dever:
Speaking of needing help, I need your help.
Jonathan Leeman:
Is it a bad sign that the season starts off like this kind of verbal stuff? I don’t think they want anything.
Mark Dever:
I think they found better podcasts while you and I have been off the air.
Jonathan Leeman:
There are plenty out there.
Mark Dever:
Bible talk.
Jonathan Leeman:
Oh, I’m so excited about that.
Mark Dever:
Jim Hamilton
Jonathan Leeman:
And Sam Amani and Alex Duke, they’re going to rock and roll through scriptures
Mark Dever:
You can find that over on bibletalk.com.
Jonathan Leeman:
I don’t think it’s at bibletalk.com. It’s at 9marks.org.
Mark Dever:
Bible com talk.org.
Jonathan Leeman:
But it’s on our website. You should check it out.
Mark Dever:
12 Ways Pastors Can Prepare for a Tough Political Season
Jonathan Leeman:
Exciting. But listen, I need your help today. I need your help writing an article. I’m writing an article right now. This is the title, 12 Ways for Pastors to Prepare for a Tough Political Season. I got 12 things.
Mark Dever:
Oh, well brother, it sounds like you’re done.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well. No, this is great.
Mark Dever:
I’ve got some emails I can do.
Jonathan Leeman:
I’m just starting and some of these might be dumb. I want to know what you have to add.
Mark Dever:
You read a whole book on this.
Jonathan Leeman:
What I’m speaking against or against?
Mark Dever:
I’m kind of your foil
Jonathan Leeman:
The landscape that I’m seeing is people on both sides feel an existential threat from the other side, a threat against their existence. And everybody is panicked. There’s rage, there’s malice, there’s fear, there’s resentment.
Mark Dever:
Now, if I’m rewatching the HBO series on John Adams right now, based on David McCullough’s life of him, and it seems
Jonathan Leeman:
Like that’s how they felt.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, it seems like very similar.
Jonathan Leeman:
And look what happened,
Mark Dever:
250 years of American
Jonathan Leeman:
History Revolution.
Mark Dever:
Well, this is after that. Once Adams was president and Jefferson formed the Republican now, Democratic Party, they were just in constant war with each other and using big language. And it sounds very similar to what you’re describing.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, I think in those early years of the Republic, the things were tumultuous and always tentative, weren’t they? And that’s part of the reason we appreciate them is they kept things together.
And you think about Madison and his talk on factions and how divisive factions are, and I think a lot of people feel more and more factions out there now, and I think we have to be wise like them, but we’re not talking to a country. We’re talking to pastors. We’re feeling it. And is that the landscape you’re seeing? It seems like you want to downplay the tumult.
Mark Dever:
Just maybe put it in context. Just think. I think people have often felt things like that. I think right now with the extra stress people are feeling emotionally from COVID-19, from isolation, from physical threat, I think everything is probably ramped up.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah.
Mark Dever:
Also, you and I are recording this right now when there’s a presidential election going on, that also in America always amps things up.
Jonathan Leeman:
Interestingly, another article I read talked about how independent things and non-contingent things often precipitate revolutions. So a year before the Russian Revolution, there was a massive famine in the land. And before the American Revolution, there is various pandemics going on and so forth. And so very often things like that,
Mark Dever:
You see common next year, the president’s assassinated.
Jonathan Leeman:
Now you’re just making fun.
Mark Dever:
I’m not, I’m just trying to understand what you’re saying.
Jonathan Leeman:
Here’s number three. You are demonstrating right now number three on my list of 12 things,
Mark Dever:
Which is mistaking somebody’s words.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, actually that’s number two, have nothing to do with the brawlers. Oh wait, I’ll get back to that. Number three, be a drama dampener, not an accelerator.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. I try to do that self-consciously.
The Enemy Works in Fear
Jonathan Leeman:
Satan loves drama.
Mark Dever:
He won’t like the last one.
Jonathan Leeman:
No. Good point. But I think he likes to get Christians to say can you believe what she’s saying? Can you believe what he’s doing?
Mark Dever:
He works in fear.
Jonathan Leeman:
And so in my encounters with you, you’re often doing precisely what you just demonstrated in the first part of this conversation. Is it really that new? Is that something you’re doing deliberately?
Mark Dever:
Probably not.
Jonathan Leeman:
Instinctive?
Mark Dever:
I think so.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay.
Mark Dever:
I majored in history. What can I say? I read a lot of history. Right before you came in, I was reading about the murder of Sir Thomas Bury in the early 16 hundreds of poisoning.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, that’s relevant.
Mark Dever:
Well, it may be more relevant than you think.
Jonathan Leeman:
So you would affirm this first point. Some pastors love drama.
Mark Dever:
Scripture is clear that humans are, even in our redeemed state, we are beset by sins and temptations. And yet those sins and temptations in no way will finally overpower the Christian. So we have no need.
Finally, for fear, and this is, you’re using the popular sense, we should certainly fear the Lord, but in the sense of an ominous sense of the future, Christians, we don’t need to go there. We trust God’s grace for today. We act with what he gives us today in good conscience as best we can and we trust him with the future.
Jonathan Leeman:
Christians I think are panicked about this election. Right? How do you say that to them? I think you do, and I think you want other pastors to be saying that. How do you do that without seeming insensitive or just out of touch?
Mark Dever:
Well, I think to people who demand panic as the only responsible reaction
Jonathan Leeman:
And they do on social media.
Mark Dever:
If they’re demanding that, then you will then what I’m saying will sound insensible and irresponsible.
Jonathan Leeman:
Number two, since we were already talking about,
Mark Dever:
I thought we were on a list of 12 where we were down to four
Jonathan Leeman:
And I jumped to three because you were demonstrating it so well.
Mark Dever:
Okay.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay. I’ll go back to number one. Here’s number one. Are you ready?
Mark Dever:
It’s your list, brother. We can take it in whatever order you want.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, I want to know when we get to the end of it
Mark Dever:
If I have anything to add.
Recognize the Existential Threats
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s right. Number one, I say I recognize the existential threat.
Mark Dever:
So this is an interview really about your article.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, this is you helping me improve my article. Think through my article.
Mark Dever:
So this is how you’re double using your time, your editing time. Oh my, yes.
Jonathan Leeman:
Two birds, one stone. Woo. Look at it. Go. Okay.
Mark Dever:
And you assume others are going to be interested in hearing this.
Jonathan Leeman:
Do you have any other critiques offered at this moment?
Mark Dever:
That’s a question, brother. It’s a question. You’ve been on Twitter a bit lately, haven’t you? Feel a little defensive.
Jonathan Leeman:
Check this out. Listen to this. I actually wrote the article because I think people might be interested.
Mark Dever:
I wrote the article, which I think is a very interesting topic and potentially edifying topic,
Jonathan Leeman:
I think you might help me improve my thoughts, and I want to invite you to do that.
Mark Dever:
Thank you.
Jonathan Leeman:
Number one, recognize the existential threat people are feeling and remind them of their salvation from an eternal threat.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. We’re talking about Christians. Yes, definitely.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah. I was preaching Psalm 2 on Sunday and that was one of my main points. One who sits in heaven holds them in derision. And I think the existential threats are real. And I think we can affirm people in the fact that they’re real, but then say, Hey, they’re real.
Mark Dever:
They’re temporary.
Jonathan Leeman:
Exactly. And if pastors don’t have a grip on that inside of the existential threat, that’s no good.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, I agree.
Have Nothing to Do With the Brawlers
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay. Number two, have nothing to do with the brawlers.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, that’s hard because on a few different levels, one, as pastors, we are called to deal with sheep. And sheep frequently nip or bite. And so we can be tempted to categorize a sheep as a brawler,
Jonathan Leeman:
But they’re out there.
Mark Dever:
But as pastors, we can’t only deal with people who we think treat us nicely verbally. We have to initiate love and care for those who don’t return the same to us.
Jonathan Leeman:
Amen. I’m also thinking though of Paul wearing a device a person wants then a second time then having nothing. That’s right. So brother, how, give me some help discerning, that’s a brawler. That’s ab biting sheep.
Mark Dever:
I’m thinking back over 20 plus years here, and I only remember one person who I would put in that final category where we would excommunicate because of that.
Jonathan Leeman:
For being that divisive.
Mark Dever:
So I don’t think it’s that common a thing. I think in a lesser sense, dealing with people who are being wrongly divisive is very common. But in the sense that Paul is saying there even to the one who has nothing to do with him,
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s excommunication.
Mark Dever:
Well, yeah. I think you’re dealing with a much smaller group of people. Not everybody just seems sometimes divisive.
Speak What You Know and Don’t Succumb to Fear
Jonathan Leeman:
Let’s reign it, reign it in. Remember your church on Facebook, he’s picking fights, he’s bullying.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. Here’s the funny thing about us getting used to quote social media, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I don’t know all the various iterations there are these days, but people imagine that because they are legally free to speak they don’t have a responsibility to consider their speech’s effect on others because people are choosing to read what they’ve written.
You don’t have to be my friend on Facebook, you don’t have to read my tweets, and you don’t have to follow me on Twitter, on Instagram. And so there’s a volitional sense of you’ve chosen to step into this conversation, this space where I’m saying these things. So you can’t really blame me for what I’m saying.
I don’t think that’s quite a Christian way to think about it. I certainly want to encourage us to maintain freedom of speech. I’m not trying to limit our civil rights at all, but I do think as Christians, we have a responsibility that goes beyond merely what we are free to do legally and even morally to what is loving.
And that will definitely affect the way we speak and the way we choose to speak. And if we are speaking into a media in which others can step in and listen to us, and let’s particularly say if we don’t sort of lock our things so that we have to prove everybody who comes into the room, but anybody who has that media platform, that app can get in and listen to what we’re saying, then I think we need to be careful and exemplary in our language.
Jonathan Leeman:
You should tweet what you said right now. People think that because they’re free to speak, they don’t have a responsibility to consider its impact on others. That’s a good little nugget I think.
Mark Dever:
Feel free to take it, man.
Jonathan Leeman:
Number four, this is something I’ve learned from you. Speak to what not what you don’t know. And when you’re speaking as a pap pastor from the pulpit, speak to what you know, not what you don’t know. A good general principle.
Mark Dever:
Yes, of course.
Jonathan Leeman:
Number five, don’t succumb to fear and resentment, but give honor to whom honor is due. The text I’m thinking of here is Daniel coming out of the lion’s den there with King Darius clearly threatening his life is
Mark Dever:
The king is trying to promote idolatry,
Jonathan Leeman:
He still says, oh king live forever. How could he show honor to that pagan king? There was still that element there. Thoughts on that one?
Mark Dever:
Good observation from Daniel. We can rightly show and should rightly show reverence to deeply sinful secular authorities.
Jonathan Leeman:
Right? And there’s a lot of panic and fear and resentment. On the one hand, I understand it, but on the other hand, I don’t think we need to act like corner dogs, and especially pastors I think need to be careful.
Mark Dever:
Well, when we act like corner dogs, we’re sort of making it seem like we don’t believe the Bible’s eschatology. Right? We’re making it seem like, okay, really it’s just an act I put on at my religious meetings on the weekends. I really am terrorized and terrified by exactly what you’re talking about. And I think when we do that, it’s a disgrace to the gospel.
Don’t Worship Political Leaders or Movements
Jonathan Leeman:
Number six, don’t give political leaders or movements the worship they too often desire.
Mark Dever:
That’s what I was just meaning to get at. Yeah. We don’t treat them as ultimate things that are temporal.
Jonathan Leeman:
Another article you look forward to in this next journal, Mark is the one by Sam Amma on Revelation and the Beast
Mark Dever:
And how the beast, revelation 13.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yep. How the beast is soliciting and he sees, so he sees this as kind of a pattern of government,
Mark Dever:
Citizen, the beast is millennial. I have a lot of friends who believe that
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, no, Sam is. And he sees this as patterns of governments throughout history. Think of Pharaoh, time of Moses, think of Nebuchadnezzar, think of Darius. We just talked about Napoleon desiring worship and crushing the saints.
He says, Sam says, Christians must resist the Messianic claims of political figures and state power. I’m not asserting that Christians refrain from political action. By all means, give your political part of your vote. Just don’t give them your heart.
Mark Dever:
Well said.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah. Thought so too. There are worship wars out there, and I’m not talking about contemporary versus traditional. I’m talking about what we learned about at church and what a lot of these campaigns want from us
Mark Dever:
When Satan temps Jesus and tells him to worship him, and he’ll give him all the nations of the world.
Straight Line vs Jagged Line Issues
Jonathan Leeman:
Precisely. Number seven, speak to straight line whole church issues from the pulpit.
Mark Dever:
Robert Benet.
Jonathan Leeman:
What does that mean?
Mark Dever:
That’s where we get that straight line, jagged line illustration from
Jonathan Leeman:
How have you sought to apply that in your ministry?
Mark Dever:
Well, I think one thing that is an example that surprises people sometimes is I don’t promote particular ways to oppose abortion from the pulpit. I do very much both in prayer and in public teaching, to teach that abortion is wrong. It’s the human taking of a human life without due authority.
Jonathan Leeman:
Right. Can I be a pro-abortion member of your church?
Advocate for Christian Freedom But Beware of Its Weakness
Mark Dever:
No. I mean maybe quietly in your heart, but not if you say so. No. Or certainly if you advocate, and you and I often get into arguments with people or people are misrepresenting us when we talk about a Christian being free to vote for a pro-abortion candidate.
Anytime a Christian votes for a pro-abortion candidate, they’re doing so despite their stance on abortion, not because if someone were to support a candidate because they’re in favor of abortion, that would be a form of championing abortion and would be discipline at our
Jonathan Leeman:
Church. So you’re doing your best to stick to the straight line whole church, church. We’re not dividing over these things. We are uniting around these whole church issues.
Mark Dever:
And then you guys preach among yourselves and can disagree or feel like this is the better way to oppose abortion. I’m going to work on this way in this way, but not this way. I’m going to work on this way or that way. Yeah, you do that.
Christians Should Oppose Racism
Jonathan Leeman:
Same with racism. Christians should oppose racism.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. It’s some difference though with the abortion issue. Abortion is pretty easy to define. You can come up with a really technical, but it’s pretty easy. Racism. Well, defining that itself is a contentious matter.
Jonathan Leeman:
Fair enough.
Mark Dever:
So one of the differences between divided by faith and white fragility or how to raise or how to be an anti-racist, how to be an anti-racist, how to be an anti-racist is the latter. Two volumes don’t use that sort of middle category of racialization that Emerson and Smith used instead. They just call it all racism and that just sort of inflames and makes the conversation even more difficult.
Whereas I think Emerson Smith, Emerson, and Smith wisely came up with this sort of middle category of racialization. That is where race is a significant issue in a topic when it need not be as opposed to racism, which they left for a more personal matter of prejudice and bigotry, which is to help people to usually use the word in English.
Jonathan Leeman:
Maybe a way to simplify it all is just to say Christians should be opposed to James chapter two, favoritism partially based on any one of these categories,
Mark Dever:
Impartiality should mark us.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yet people are going to have different ways of approaching it, which seems to be my next point. Number eight, tread softly when addressing jagged-line Christian freedom issues from the pulpit.
Mark Dever:
And this is not going to get you more followers on Twitter. This is not going to get people wanting to publish your sermon. It’s going to be the careful, kind, loving treatment of sheep who are in serious disagreements in decision tree off of decision tree, off of decision tree of particular circumstances that you hadn’t really thought of before. And you’re trying to apply scripture carefully, and respectfully, allowing for Christian freedom and yet being clear on what the Bible says is right and wrong.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, number nine is the biggest advocate of Christian freedom in the church. Something I’ve seen you exemplify and something, I was speaking to a bunch of church leaders this week in another city and I just borrowing from you.
I say, guys, you need to be the biggest advocates of Christian freedom in your church. And sometimes they get it right away. Sometimes it takes a little explaining.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. Well, because you’re the one who’s bringing God’s words to the people. I mean the sheep are growing up under your handling of the Oracles of God. So you’re the one in the Moses situation who’s bringing God’s word down from the mountain again and again.
You are being given the privilege of turning the light on in people’s minds to see things in the most absolute black and white that they had had in a kind of pre regenerate state of gray living on in their mind. And God gives you the wonderful privilege of doing it.
So for you to say, ah, now whether or not you observe the day like this, or whether or not you eat that meat or not, or whatever our modern equivalents are, for you to say that is a disputable matter and that we can have honest disagreements between us on that, that brings some nice space in for people to exercise charity and to not wrongly assume a position of being the judge of someone else’s conscience, someone else’s actions. And for us of all people to say that it’s just particularly powerful, I think, and particularly useful and important.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, because I trust you’ve had the experience. Somebody comes to you and they want your opinion and they want your opinion because you’re the pastor and because they are going to take what you say as weighing more with the I.
Mark Dever:
One time a senator who had, voted, had he changed his vote, an amendment to the United States Constitution would’ve then gone to the state legislatures. And I privately had a very strong opinion on the matter and he wanted my counsel on what he should do.
He asked for it privately. He had me come down to his office privately and I said, that because a moral issue was not involved, a straightforward, biblical moral issue was not involved. I did not feel like my responsibility was best used in telling him how he should vote on this.
I said, I know clearly how I would vote on this, but the authority I have in your life as your pastor is therefore Christ and his atonement. It’s therefore the things in scripture for your soul. It’s not for stuff like this.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, speaking of constitutional amendments, had that been the 13th, 14th, 15th,
Mark Dever:
Very different amendment
Jonathan Leeman:
You would’ve said something.
Mark Dever:
Oh very clearly,
Jonathan Leeman:
Which brings me to my 10th point.
Mark Dever:
Had it been the 19th amendment, the 100th anniversary of which is today, I would’ve said something,
Jonathan Leeman:
Oh, the 19th Amendment
Mark Dever:
Reminds me of the right to vote for women. I would’ve spoken up in favor of that.
Jonathan Leeman:
Right. Well, that brings me to my 10th point. Beware the weakness of emphasizing Christian freedom. Beware the weakness of always defaulting towards emphasizing Christian freedom.
What I’m thinking here is the dangers of complicity, the dangers of letting unfaithfulness in the failure to take a stand when you should take a stand. And so you’re saying, Hey, matters of African-Americans voting or women voting, yes, I would take a stand. Right?
Mark Dever:
That’s a moral issue.
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s a moral issue. So as much as you need to be the biggest advocate of Christian freedom in the church, you have to also exercise extreme care. And knowing there are times you’re going to have to speak into specific historical situations. I think right. As a pastor and say, this is wrong. This is right.
Mark Dever:
Well, I might even disagree with another Christian theologian about whether or not this constitutional amendment was a matter of Christian freedom. I don’t think a balanced budget amendment is a matter that’s finally clearly taught in scripture. I don’t think it has to do with what scripture teaches about debt. That’s not how national wealth is assessed and currency has its value. It doesn’t work like that.
Expect Politically Frustrated Members to Leave
Jonathan Leeman:
Right. Number 11, expect politically frustrated members to leave and bless them when they go.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. Now you mean bless. You’re not
Jonathan Leeman:
Bless those brothers. They come to you, Mark, why don’t you preach more about this? And you say to them, well, maybe we’re not the best church. You want ’em to stay I trust.
But sometimes you don’t want to continue to burden their conscience. They’re really into this particular issue and maybe they decide to go in another church and you want to bless ’em as they go.
Mark Dever:
Sure. Yeah. I’m trying to make sure you’re using the bus straightforwardly. Yes. As long as you’re using blood straightforwardly.
Jonathan Leeman:
I’m sorry, how was I?
Mark Dever:
No, no, I agree entirely. Yeah, of course.
Jonathan Leeman:
And I think what that does is that gives you the freedom to continue to speak to the Bible and not address what you don’t know and know that people might get frustrated with you.
Mark Dever:
With our congregation, we’ve got hundreds of people who work in government and in think tanks. And there’s no topic I can bring up that people sitting there dunno more about it than I do.
If we get near health stuff with Covid right now, we’ve got statisticians, we’ve got doctors, we’ve got government officials, we’ve got researchers at NIH. I mean I, what do I know? So I can say things clearly from scripture about what the scriptures teach,
Jonathan Leeman:
Right? But what I’m feeling, especially as I’m speaking to different pastors and churches, that is culture becomes more divided. And as we feel those divisions in our churches and as some churches lean this way and some churches lean that way, you might find yourself in a church that leans hard one way politically or another way or divided on both sides.
And just like, I’m not going to satisfy all of you and if you have to leave, you have to leave. I’m going to keep trying to be faithful knowing that some of you leave and if you know, leave, okay, bless you. I hope you find a church that preaches the gospel or I’m going to insist that you do. So I hope that to give some freedom.
Mark Dever:
I think a lot of churches these days don’t try to bridge any kind of divide. I think the tension that you’re saying that a lot of churches feel, I think our church feels, but I can think of a lot of churches where I know and love the pastor that I don’t think they feel much tension like that. All they feel is besieged, whether they’re on the right or the left.
Jonathan Leeman:
Right. Meaning their congregation
Mark Dever:
Pretty homogeneous politically,
Jonathan Leeman:
But the pastor’s not there in that same position
Mark Dever:
No, no, no. I guess what I’m saying is that what you’re describing, that pastor in that situation, I think Capitol Hill Baptist Church is like that. I think it’s a bit mixed politically, so largely conservative because we oppose abortion, but it’s deliberately as mixed as we can be under the current circumstances. But I think many, many churches out there align up much more uniformly behind a particular political party.
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s true.
Mark Dever:
And therefore they don’t feel the stresses and strains in the same way that we do.
Jonathan Leeman:
They don’t feel that. But what I’m encountering is pastors whose congregation seems to be taking their cue largely from one news channel or the other news channel, and they’re saying, Jonathan, I’m not right there. How does it create a different kind of tension?
But in both cases, I think I’m saying, expect politically frustrated members to leave and bless him when they go One time, brother, I heard you say, Hey, so-and-so wants to try to live his Christian faith through that particular political lens so long as he’s faithful of the gospel. No. Okay.
Mark Dever:
Of course. Yeah. So for example, if we’re at the time of the American Revolution and I’m in favor of the revolution, and you’re a Tory
Jonathan Leeman:
John Wesley is writing his letter to the American room colonists saying this is wrong.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, there it is. And then Christians can disagree on that.
Fight for the Church
Jonathan Leeman:
Right. Number 12, fight for the church more than you fight for an election outcome. I just feel like some of us are losing sight of the-
Mark Dever:
Well, it’s because the political realities seem existential larger stronger, and more pressing. And they’re not going to be there at your funeral. They’re not going to be with your family. They’re not going to be there at your wedding.
Jonathan Leeman:
What am I missing? You’re talking to pastors guys next few months are going to be tough. Here’s what I want you to know. What do you get?
Mark Dever:
I would encourage you to trust the point of whatever book of the Bible you’re working through right now, it’s relevant. That’s the stuff people need to know. That’s good. Don’t get put off by whatever you’re seeing happen in the newsfeeds.
You look at all 66 of those books are inspired by the Holy Spirit. All of them are intended to feed his church. Just lean into that and build up the church on the word of God.
Jonathan Leeman:
So you’re saying don’t preach special things on this topic.
Mark Dever:
Keep preaching. No, brother. I was actually just making a note right before you came in about how I want to do a series. This is probably going to be after the election by this point, but I want to do a one-off on conscience, gender, race, and unity.
Jonathan Leeman:
Oh wow.
Mark Dever:
One on each of those.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay.
Mark Dever:
So no, definitely by all means address those things, but the basic meat you have to give the congregation is not around. Whatever happens, to bubble right now, it’s around those issues that God has identified for us in his word, and he will feed us. He will give us a whole understanding of ourselves, our lives, and our fate to come that will shape what we care about now, what we fear, and what we love.
Jonathan Leeman:
Now, one way, if I’m preaching through the book of Mark, one way to refuse worship to the principalities and powers that they insist upon is to, if I’m at Mark chapter two, I’m going to trust that the point of Mark chapter two is what my people need more than anything else. No more talk about the election.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, that’s right. And if something pressing has happened in the previous week, by all means in your pastoral prayer, make it clear.
Jonathan Leeman:
Sure, sure.
Mark Dever:
Anything else? That’s it, man. Go to the non-Marsh website
Jonathan Leeman:
Check out some more stuff. Preach the point of the text.
Mark Dever:
Preach the point of the text.
Jonathan Leeman:
Amen.
Mark Dever:
Mark number one is breaching.
Jonathan Leeman:
We’ll leave it there. Thanks.
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