Episode 151: On How Much a Pastor Should Care About His Reputation
How much should a pastor care about his reputation? In this episode of Pastors Talk, Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman discuss the correct and incorrect ways for a pastor to care about human opinion. They talk about the appropriate posture a pastor should have when facing criticism from others and flesh out how a pastor should think about his social media/internet presence. They finish by addressing how pastors can live with fear of God and not of man.
- What is the Right Way for a Pastor to be Concerned with His Reputation?
- What is the Wrong Way for a Pastor to be Concerned with His Reputation?
- What Posture Should Pastors Adopt Towards Their Reputation?
- How Pastors Should Think about Social Media?
- How to be a Pastor Who Doesn’t Live for the Praise of Men
Transcript
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:
I am Jonathan Leeman. I know you think it’s unlikely, but he really is. I’m sitting here, and it is, in fact, Jonathan David Leeman. And with me is Mark Dever, for real, for real. And welcome to this episode of 9Marks Pastors Talk. 9Marks exists to equip church leaders with a biblical vision and practical resources for building healthy churches. Learn more at 9marks.org. Mark, I want to talk about a pastor’s concern for his own reputation. Okay.
Mark Dever:
On the one hand, you have Paul. He must be well thought of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace, into the snare of the devil. Does that mean Jesus couldn’t be an elder? Well, I was about to quote Jesus who said, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. What do you think? Who do we listen to? Jesus or Paul?
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, I think both. I think that’s, I assume you as a pastor have had conversations like that. I certainly have.
Mark Dever:
I think what Jesus is talking about is the basic antipathy there is from the world to us as followers of Christ. And it’s true. You and I both know that in our own struggle to repent, how we have to go against our own flesh, certainly when we were initially converted, but then in a continuing sense in following the Lord. So there’s a worldliness that Bunyan represented as Vanity Fair in *Pilgrim’s Progress*, so aptly.
On the other hand, there is, once you’re in the Christian life and you’re living as a Christian, when you’re in a normal community, even of fallen people, there is a kind of reputation that Jesus himself sees Mark Dever to assume. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 when he says, they will see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father on the day he comes. And then Peter repeats that.
So there is both an antipathy with the world in a basic spiritual battle sense, but then also in an every day having to do with, are you an honorable person? Do you pay your bills? Do you lie about others or tell the truth? There’s a sense in which you have a good reputation at work. You have a good reputation with your neighbors. So, true to say, there is a sense in which a pastor should be concerned about his reputation and another sense in which he should not be concerned about his reputation.
What is the Right Way for a Pastor to be Concerned with His Reputation?
Jonathan Leeman:
That is true. Okay, can you help us fill out each of these? What is a right way for a pastor to be concerned about his reputation?
Mark Dever:
The right way for a pastor to be concerned about his reputation is to make sure that there’s nothing associated with him, that it’s his responsibility. I well understand people who think they can be associated with you, but they’re not your responsibility as people lie about you, which I do find happens to me online.
But when things with your responsibility are associated with you, which would bring shame to the name of God, that’s wrong. You don’t want that to happen. So insofar as I have a responsibility, I don’t want to behave in any way that would do anything to bring disrepute or would misrepresent God and His character of being holy and loving and one.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay, so before we get to the wrong way to think about, to care about your reputation, still on the right way, is this where we see a kind of connection between the authority of the Word as he preaches and his reputation? So we know that when you stand up and preach, the authority is inherent in the Word, right? That binds the consciences of the congregation. Not in the character of the person who’s speaking.
Mark Dever:
Right. Nonetheless…
Jonathan Leeman:
Thus the Donatist controversy back in the fourth and fifth centuries in North Africa, it settled the fact that baptism and the Lord’s Supper were taken to be authentic even if the person giving them later fell away and apostatized the truth of the Gospel that was preached and the sincerity of the profession of faith that was involved in taking the baptism or the Lord’s Supper was to be appropriate even if the person administering them were exposed later as an apostate.
Mark Dever:
Well, okay, so there we have a good boundary on that side of things. At the same time, there is a kind of connection between your character and your reputation for your character and your ability to preach the word, your ability to faithfully discharge the word in a way that grows and encourages a congregation, right?
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, very much so.
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
And so, in that sense, you do need to give attention to your reputation.
What is the Wrong Way for a Pastor to Be Concerned with His Reputation?
Mark Dever:
Okay, but what is a wrong way for a pastor to care about his reputation?
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, Richard Sibbes said, if you live in the mouths of men, you’ll die in the mouths of men.
Mark Dever:
What he meant by that is if you care about what people say about you, you’ll find yourself tortured. It’s not appropriate for us to do that. We need to live in that sense in the mouth of God. We need to live for his final statement about us, not what others around us may say. So I think that we should always desire to bring glory to God, but we should not be surprised when in doing the right things that bring God delight and joy, we encounter opposition.
Jonathan Leeman:
So they’re going to lie about you.
Mark Dever:
They may.
Jonathan Leeman:
I’ve seen people lie about you even this week online.
Mark Dever:
Yes, I have.
Jonathan Leeman:
But I don’t see you always correcting them.
Mark Dever:
Well, yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
Often you seem to say nothing.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, you don’t answer a fool according to his folly.
Jonathan Leeman:
But people are saying untrue things about you.
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
Surely you have a concern that other people, okay, so you get a little dirty from that pig. Surely you have a concern that other people not be led astray about you and who you are and what you believe. Yet you often remain silent.
What’s going on there? Help me understand that. Because I genuinely struggle with knowing whether or not to correct what I perceive to be an error or misunderstanding or certainly out and out lies.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, and I may make the wrong judgment about this. I may be incorrect, but I think that I would assume that the truth will out and that if… if what someone is saying about me. So an article that a few people sent me this week suggests that I approve of murdering babies.
Well, anyone who’s been a member of the Capitol Baptist Church understands that if you have somebody who advocates abortion rights, generally speaking, you would be excommunicated from our church. The congregation wouldn’t do that.
They would excommunicate me. So there’s a certain public that wants to hear scandalous things about people who are presented negatively in certain corners of the internet. And if you have a public profile at all, you will be blessed by being somebody’s corner of shame and scandal that they unify their people by saying bad things about you.
And the things that they say in this case are just not true. And the good news is anybody who gets anywhere near firsthand knowledge of the truth will understand, oh, this is… this is at least a mistake and at worst a lie, which is not true.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay. So is there a distinction to be made? So let’s say people were arguing whether or not Mark is fat or Mark is proud.
Mark Dever:
Well, now those could be lively debates. There could be arguments made on both sides of those assertions about me. But if anyone says that I am in favor of murdering babies, there’s really just not an argument.
Jonathan Leeman:
I understand what it is. It’s the peak of some people for me saying that I would not excommunicate somebody for voting for a pro-abortion candidate despite their stance on abortion.
Mark Dever:
And that’s a different question. That’s a question about voting.
Jonathan Leeman:
And you did an excellent article on that in the most recent 9Marks Journal.
Mark Dever:
And I was making a statement there really about Christian unity, the freeness of the gospel, Galatians. I’m not making zsa statement about the morality in any sense of abortion, but for some people that incenses them that they then draw conclusions in their minds.
Jonathan Leeman:
And they misrepresent.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, they actually misrepresent things that I many times explicitly said.
Jonathan Leeman:
Right.
Mark Dever:
Because in their minds, this logically follows, therefore they will simply assert this is true and it makes for more spectacular copy. And it feeds the prejudices of the people who find them reliable.
What Posture Should Pastors Adopt Towards Their Reputation?
Jonathan Leeman:
It’d be easy for us to kind of keep going down this road. I don’t want the abortion thing to kind of be what this is about, take over this conversation. I am interested in the reputation. Nonetheless, here’s what I was driving at, even as these lies come out about you, you don’t get online and defend yourself. And here’s what I wonder, do you have a different threshold for defending yourself online and defending yourself in your local congregation and lies or misrepresentations or misunderstandings there?
Do you understand yourself to have a higher accountability to your church than you say to the internet? And I’m not finally interested in what Mark Dever thinks, I’m finally interested in what you think pastors, in general, should adopt, what posture they should adopt.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, I think I understand what you’re saying. Certainly, I have an accountability from Hebrews
13 for the members of the Capitol Hill Baptist Church that I don’t have for anybody who happens to go to a certain website. So in that sense, a pastor has a biblically defined responsibility, but simply knowing I have that responsibility doesn’t tell me what I’m to do in this particular situation. So I think I have to decide, is this serious?
Is this spreading? Does this inhibit the disciples’ ability to hear and learn from me and trust me? Or is this one of the whole cavalcade of passing interests that we might disagree on or I might attain disfavor on his or her side on this matter? I just have to assess the weight and significance of it and is it dangerous to that individual or to other individuals in our church?
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay. Any other principles for when to ignore slander? And let’s just say in your church. So one seems to be how big of a deal is it? This is traveling outward, which I take from your comments just now. Other principles for when to just ignore misrepresentation, slander, misunderstanding, anything.
Mark Dever:
Nefarious, not nefarious. Certainly, if I discern it to be malicious, then I have to speak to it because that’s beginning to say this person is a wolf. And Jesus and the epistles warn us that part of our job of shepherding is to defend the sheep from wolves.
And wolves show themselves when they bear their teeth and they bite. And we can’t out of misplaced selflessness assume that because the wolf is biting me, therefore he won’t bite any other members. It’s probably usually the opposite.
Usually, if they’ve bitten you, you can be sure they’ve already bitten some other members. You know, so you have to be very observant and careful. But on the other hand, we have to be aware that we’re just humans and that we’re going to be overly sensitive to our own dignity and glory and honor. And therefore, somebody saying something negative about us or something we’ve done is something that you and I as sinners are too likely to take an affront to.
We’re too likely to misweigh it too heavily. And therefore, the last day will show the truth of all this. And it’s, we don’t have to worry about the Lord misjudging and miss weighing things. So when in doubt, I’d rather do nothing. I’d rather let them chomp ahead and they can just see if my life and my teaching and my work are worthwhile or not.
And if it’s worthwhile, then they should probably… As sheep, part of their maturity is growing to learn to discern who their teachers should appropriately be and how they can proactively work to trust teachers, even when their own flesh, just like a teacher’s flesh, has trouble sometimes being mistrusted.
So a sheep’s flesh may sometimes have trouble wrongly mistrusting that that’s some people’s predilection. It’s some people’s predilection for bad experiences they’ve had in the past with authority. It’s other people’s personality types, it seems. And as they come to Christ, then they have to wrestle with that and try to work that through if they’re going to have a fruitful relationship in a church.
Jonathan Leeman:
A comment and a question, a comment in what I just heard you say that I appreciate is even in the way you answered that first question there, there was a certain personal disinterestedness in it. You weren’t so much concerned with whether or not the wolf was attacking you as you were in how that wolf may or may not affect others.
So again, it wasn’t, you weren’t speaking, you weren’t saying, hey, speak out of personal affront, speak out of concern for the flock, which means you’ve even removed yourself from that sense and I appreciate that. Here’s my question though on the flip side.
Mark Dever:
Just one thing on that, I’m recalling a biography in which this one minister when he’s under trial, someone observing him says that he looked as if his happiness was beyond the reach of his accusers.
Jonathan Leeman:
It’s beautiful.
Christianity and Politics
Mark Dever:
Yeah, I think as Christians, I mean, you and I are taping this on election day back in, what is it, 1896.
Jonathan Leeman:
It’s amazing how early we got this technology going.
Mark Dever:
But anyway, there are many people who think the election between McKinley and William Jennings Bryan is really going to determine, William Jennings Bryan is going to burn this country down if he’s elected and McKinley is just in the pocket of big business. They just think the whole world depends on the outcome of this.
Jonathan Leeman:
You’ve been reading presidential books lately, haven’t you?
Mark Dever:
I always have, man.
Jonathan Leeman:
Really just everything hangs on this election today. And as Christians, we’ve got to be the ones who walk around with a greater joy, a higher hope, a broader perspective, a deeper trust in the sovereignty of God.
That doesn’t mean these things don’t matter, but in perspective, they don’t matter nearly as much as Vanity Fair tells us they do. It’s just flotsam and jetsam floating on the top of the world that will vanish soon.
Jonathan Leeman:
And what’s true of the election is also true, you’re saying, of a pastor’s concern for his own reputation.
Mark Dever:
And the passing bad comments they may make about you.
Jonathan Leeman:
All right, and here’s the question I was getting to. Do pastors too quickly take things as personal assaults, which they should not? It’s kind of a leading question, obviously. I’m thinking you lose a vote or something. Yes. Is that common for pastors? In any word for pastors about not doing that?
Mark Dever:
Well, you’re right, you shouldn’t do that. There are times when it probably is personal. You know, if a brother’s in an early stage of reforming a church, or if there’s been a certain revolt against an aspect, something in the life of the church he’s trying to change or grow or mature, and there are people pushing back against that, then it may well be personal.
But many times, it could just be a combination of events. And since you are right at the crux of it, it feels personal to you when, yeah, it’s probably not. So, you know, I regularly lose votes on our eldership and it doesn’t make me think ill of the elders who vote differently than me. Given the evident esteem and love they do have for me, it kind of makes my esteem for them grow, you know, to know that they’re taking this charge so seriously that they would even in front of me vote against me.
I mean, that’s like, Oh, that’s, I like that. I mean, that’s to me, that’s, that says something good. It doesn’t mean that we necessarily agree with them on that particular vote. Obviously, I voted a different way. But it does mean their ability to do that suggests that they have a fear and a love that’s higher than their fear or love of me, who’s had in some of their lives a very big influence.
Jonathan Leeman:
Haven’t you had to ever coach yourself through to not take it personally? Like, okay, Mark, just remember he’s doing that for all of these reasons that you just said. Yeah. Don’t take that personally and talk yourself through that.
Mark Dever:
I know. I know the answer should be yes.
Jonathan Leeman:
I understand that. Well, let me just say, I’m thinking of what Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached to himself.
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
Surely there must be times when a man, a pastor, must preach to himself.
How Pastors Should Think About Social Media?
Mark Dever:
But you know, the slander that you were referring to earlier online this week about me, maybe there’s something wrong with me, but it bothers me not at all.
Jonathan Leeman:
I remember one time you said, fear of man, at least certain varieties of fear of man, and you kind of hit your arm. You said they’re like dead nerves.
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
That can’t be entirely true, but it has to be somewhat true.
Mark Dever:
Some might even say you’re a little pathological.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, sociopathic, but yeah. So, sociopathic even in these ways.
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
I don’t think most of us are. At the same time, you’ve had to coach and train yourself not to care what people think. I’m thinking of your stories of getting to Cambridge and the way you introduced yourself.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, that’s true. Yeah, yeah, with my supervisor.
Jonathan Leeman:
Tell that story.
Mark Dever:
When I first got to England and I was preparing to do a PhD, I met up with my supervisor and… You know, one of the things that’s true generally of people who go into doctoral studies is they desperately want the approval of established scholars, particularly with those who have good reputations. It’s just, you know, scholarship, academia trades in the fear of man. It’s just…
Jonathan Leeman:
Big time.
A Pastor’s Reputation in Fundamental Christianity
Mark Dever:
Hugely. And this guy had written some good articles and books already, and he was kind of on the up. I was glad to have him as my supervisor, and he was Roman Catholic, and I was going to be working on Puritanism.
And I knew that… It would be, so here would be an example, here would be a clear example of me having a veered man. I knew it would be a significant temptation for me to want him to respect me and think well of me.
And so, I was determined in my first meeting as best I could to kind of wreck that. So, I introduced myself to him as a fundamentalist Christian and I said…
Jonathan Leeman:
Like he stuck out your hand and said, hi, I’m Mark, I’m a fundamentalist Christian, like that sort of…
Mark Dever:
An equivalent of that without the handshake, sitting with tea in his rooms at Mulderlin College at Cambridge.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay.
Mark Dever:
But like in the first minute or two of the conversation, just deliberately, I just want you to know that I believe the Bible is literally true and I believe in a little Adam and Eve and little resurrection of the dead and that Christ is coming again and –
Jonathan Leeman:
You shoved all of that into the first minute.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, because I didn’t want to ever be tempted to try to make him think that I was more respectable intellectually than I was. And I said, but listen, I’m going to be praying for you every day and just let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to be praying for you about.
Jonathan Leeman:
How do you respond?
Mark Dever:
You may not even remember.
Jonathan Leeman:
No, I do a bit. I mean, he was British, so he was –
Mark Dever:
Polite.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, he was polite. It was also, I think, a little embarrassing. I think it was unexpected. But probably eight months or a year later, I was driving him around East Anglia, taking pictures for his book.
What did he call it? *The Stripping of the Altars*, Eamon Duffy. And he brought back that first meeting. He said, do you remember that when you told me that? I said, yeah. And he said, yeah, I like that. He said, I appreciated that.
And he regularly asked me to pray for things. And he actually, at one point later, encouraged me to reach out to certain members of his family spiritually. So yeah, it built a sweet relationship with him that I’ve certainly profited from over the years. I don’t know if Eamon did, but I certainly profited from my relationship with him.
Jonathan Leeman:
I remember first hearing that story, not the driving around the countryside part, but how you introduced yourself, I think in my mid-twenties when I was here.
Mark Dever:
When you were cool and you had a motorcycle.
Jonathan Leeman:
That was back in the day, man.
Mark Dever:
I remember that, Jonathan Lehman.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, in fact, that’s right where I’m going. So I remember really respecting that. And the way I tried to apply that in my own life, I had this brown corduroy jacket. That was sort of a fake looking leather jacket from Gap.
And it was old and it was worn out looking. But then I bought a J.Crew brown leather jacket that was beautiful and I loved it. And I remember when fall time, winter time would come and I’d pull that out again, I’d be like, all right, I get to put this on.
But then I remember hearing that story and seeing that desire for something to praise in me. And I thought this winter, I’m just gonna wear the old ratty brown corduroy jacket and leave the leather jacket in the closet. And strangely, I think the Lord used that to put to death some vanity in me.
A Pastor Should Have a Good Reputation with His Neighbors
Mark Dever:
I think those are decisions all of us are faced with and we’re faced with them repeatedly. I mean, it’s a little bit of a dramatic story of me meeting my supervisor at Cambridge for the first time, but I think a Christian every week is confronted with ways that we would like to have the respect of the world wrongly.
So it’s good for us to have a good reputation with our neighbors, with our workmates, with our parents and kids. I mean, all of that is good. But there are wrong ways that we can crave the approval and admiration of others, even other Christians. Doesn’t have to be non-Christians, even other Christians. And it’s useful for us to be doctors of our own hearts enough to know what’s going on with us spiritually that we can see this might not be a danger for anybody else in the room, but this is a danger for me and therefore I’m gonna discipline myself in this way.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah.
Mark Dever:
And it sounds like that’s what was going on with you and the Holy Spirit in that jacket. Whereas if Alberto had worn that jacket or I’d worn that jacket, it might have been fine.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, I’m not trying to say leather jackets are sinful about it or whatever. It was me knowing my own heart.
Mark Dever:
And in a way, it probably wouldn’t matter now if you wore that jacket.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, but it was a certain time, a certain thing.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah. Is there a sense in which social Mark Deveria is tempting us into worse forms of fear of man as pastors and the use of social Mark Deveria?
Mark Dever:
Yeah, definitely. But I want to be careful and say it’s not only negative. So use the word tempted and all kinds of good things can tempt us. When Satan showed Jesus the kingdoms of the world. It’s not that the kingdoms of the world are bad, but Satan wanted to put them to a bad use. So I want to be very careful.
This is not like a kind of ultimate otherworldly ascetic world denying this in every way. It is to say that our own hearts are fabulously wicked and that we can take the best designs of God and use them wrongly, idolatrously for ill and for evil. And we can take a beautifully made leather jacket and make it an instrument of sin. We can take advantage of a spouse that God in His kindness has given us. We can take the message of grace that Paul preached and use it as an excuse for sin, wrongly, but still do that. So yeah, there’s nothing good that we can’t corrupt by maluse.
Jonathan Leeman:
Any caution or comment to the guy who desires a bigger platform for godly good purposes. If my church was just this much larger, if I had just this many more Twitter followers, if I fill in the blank, a bigger platform in some way, I can do more good and impact more people for the kingdom of Christ. Concerns about that impulse?
Mark Dever:
Huge. I overheard, not overheard, I was told by party A about a conversation party B had had with party C, where party C was quote, wanting a platform and had concluded the only way you could get a platform was by, I don’t remember exactly, having a crusading cause or kind of going negative on well-known people or something.
I didn’t even hear the conclusion of that conversation. But when that was said, I didn’t necessarily believe Party C had said that, but I was quite confident in my mind that if Party C had in fact said that, it was a very bad sign spiritually. And I have been around brothers, even pastors who really want quote, a platform close quote.
And I’ve heard that very word used and they’ll ask me about it because they think I have a platform. And I think, well, a platform compared to who? I mean, compared to a nominee for president, no. Compared to Rick Warren, no. I mean, depends on what level of platform is it? Do my neighbors know who I am?
No. I mean, just as a guy next door. I mean, the desire for a platform concerns me when I hear someone else, a pastor wanting to be known and looked up to and respected, I assume that’s almost always a negative thing spiritually. And that man should do something to fight against it in his own heart. Wear the brown corduroy jacket, do something.
Jonathan Leeman:
That man needs to reread that quote I’m always using of John Brown.
Mark Dever:
All right.
Jonathan Leeman:
You know, in a letter of paternal counsels to one of his pupils newly ordained over small congregation, I know the vanity of your heart and that you will feel it’s a hard thing that you’ve been appointed a minister over a church so much smaller than those of your brethren around you, but take it on the word of an old man that when you stand before the Lord Christ to the last day to give an account, you will think you have had enough.
I mean, that’s the kind of eternal perspective that these poor, oh, just sadly hungry souls who crave respect for other passing mortals want. That’s the perspective they need to have. They need to have that bracing perspective. I would encourage you, brother, if that’s a real temptation for you.
That’s one of the, to work against that in my own heart’s one of the reasons I did the T4G address I did this past spring on what the pastor can expect at the last day. So, go to the Together for the Gospel website, look up that address from this past spring and watch what the pastor can expect at the day of judgment.
Jonathan Leeman:
Meaning to watch it a second time. And Jonathan, I would think just that must be true as well for editorial work, for writing work, because particularly in a very internet age, I mean, I guess people use videos a lot, but we read a lot of written stuff. I think we read more written stuff than, well, it’s like the newspaper craze in the 1700s only it’s even more imMark Deveriate now and therefore I think maybe more addicting.
I think social Mark Deveria by the brevity of the things on Facebook Instagram and Twitter, it makes it easier for more people to do that. They might not be able to write a long-form investigative piece. But everybody can write six sentences or one sentence. And therefore everybody gets in on it and it seems more imitate and somehow more urgent, more pressing, more new, more unique.
And therefore I think it becomes more addictive potentially for people. And so when you’re in that writing, that writing impulse, and then that reading, consuming it by reading, I think you’ve got to have a very similar kind of struggle with notoriety or widespread respect or popularity.
I would think not just before you preach, but even before you write or in your case, publish something or you have to do that same kind of soul check with yourself. I think it’s almost precisely analogous.
How to be a Pastor Who Doesn’t Live for the Praise of Men
Mark Dever:
I remember when preaching early on, feeling the desire for praise. I remember my first year of seminary thinking, I know, I’m going to defeat Satan by just not preaching so that I don’t look for praise. That’s so bad. Okay. That’s…
Jonathan Leeman:
Almost as quickly as I thought that I thought that’s stupid.
Mark Dever:
So, I have to walk into it and defeat it somehow. And so it is in writing. What I always tell people is, Satan does not want you to obey God, in this sense, write that true article. But when he sees your resolve to do it, okay, his fallback is, hey, but your motives are wrong.
So, I think he hopes that’ll cause you to say, oh, no. And I always tell people, forget the motives, do the right thing. And then deal with the motives. Because you’re always gonna struggle with motives.
Jonathan Leeman:
Here’s the one thing that, I mean, obviously I have struggled with it and the desire for people knowing me. I don’t think in a huge way, but it’s been there. But the Lord in His grace has shown me how unsatisfying a platform, any platform is because it just makes you a target.
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
And who wants that?
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
Like seriously, give me a peaceful and quiet life. Okay, so brother, just to turn it on you for a minute, you have advocated super unpopular stuff. You’ve advocated church membership. You’ve advocated church discipline. You’ve advocated congregationalism.
Back when James McDonald was saying, that’s from hell. You’ve advocated one assembly you came out with this year in which you take what I think we can say is an unpopular position that it is wrong to have two services for a congregation. We’ve talked about complementarianism.
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Being a Pastor is Not About Popularity
Jonathan Leeman:
So you’re a guy who has built his whole livelihood on saying things. Not only are they not popular with the world, but they’re not even popular with most of your reformed friends.
In fact, though you’re super popular, I think with a lot of dead Baptists, like current Baptists, you would at least be in the minority on many of these issues. So how do you deal with being the champion of lost causes?
Mark Dever:
Thank you. I think crucial is being inside of the community of brothers like you and Ryan and then certainly my own elders and congregation.
Jonathan Leeman:
Read history.
Mark Dever:
Well, yes, reading history. But what I’m touching on right here is I think no man is an island. And I think the brothers and a few sisters, especially my wife and so forth, have been crucial in sustaining me and having that kind of public proclamation, whether through the pen or otherwise career and holding me up, right?
So I don’t think I am quite as dead to fear of man as you are. And I have felt the support of brothers and sisters around me, holding me up through all of that. And in the same way, I think any pastor should be able to rely on his elders to get up there.
And so if you have a cast of elders who are your enemies or not your enemies, who are just kind of always carping. That’s a tough place for a preaching pastor to be. You want brothers around you who are supporting you in your public ministry. And I think I’ve been the beneficiary of that in different ways. Honestly, it’s been crucial for me.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, just speaking on behalf of Rick and Ryan and myself, the other directors of 9Marks, we feel it’s a joy to have you and a privilege. And the Lord has, you know, He brought you to us young.
And already gifted and you have just in your own interests, in your own, you know, pushing, questioning and interaction with the text and theology in general, you’ve just been wonderful to watch, take over these issues and, you know, push out in ways that we were not even suggesting you necessarily push out, but that you have. And it’s just been great. It’s been wonderful to watch.
Mark Dever:
Well, the other thing that I’ve learned from you, Mark, is how crucial a big God theology is to all of this and a certainty of judgment day and that judgment being more important than anything and, trusting that he will vindicate, right?
It’s finally his vindication we’re looking for. So it’s as if I’ve watched you mimic or watched you do that, I’ve tried to mimic that in the way I preach to myself going back to Lloyd-Jones, right? What good is the praise of man? It’s worth very little but the praise of God. Oh, that’s all we’re here for.
Jonathan Leeman:
Anything else on this topic?
Mark Dever:
Well, I think that pastor, if you’re listening to this, it’s a self-discipline that your life depends on that you be honest with the brothers around you. If you’re not dealing honestly with really all the people you interact with in your life regularly and if you’re not creating an atmosphere in which they can with love criticize you even if they’re wrong then you’re taking a very dangerous route and it can result in wreckage for you and wreckage for your church.
So those very simple acts of humility of laughing at the jokes at your expense. And doing it sincerely, not because you know you need to look like you are, but actually finding them funny. You know, not take yourself so seriously that you can’t laugh at aspects of yourself that other people find amusing.
That’s a big deal spiritually. It’s not a small thing. And I would encourage you to, if this is at all striking your conscience, this conversation, pull some close friends in who know you well and ask them to have good, honest conversation with you and help you explore some corners of your soul about how you’re doing with people disagreeing with you or mocking you or misrepresenting you or slandering you.
I mean, there’s all kinds of levels or speeds of it. Some of it can feel very minor, some of it very severe, but all of it can be touching at the same kind of spiritual soft spot or weakness or danger.
Jonathan Leeman:
Can I offer two last pieces of advice?
Mark Dever:
Please.
Jonathan Leeman:
It occurred to me while you’re speaking. One, just make a regular habit of confessing sin to brothers around you. Because as I confess that embarrassing, ugly thing about me and I have to rely on the grace and the glory of Christ to be my justification and not my own glory, that just develops good mental habits.
Number two, and again, this is something I’ve seen you do so well, is speak well about others. Praise, promote others, especially those who you might be tempted to be jealous of. In ways that you prize about, you know, I’d like to think of myself as a good writer. Okay, I’m definitely going to work on praising other guys who are good writers in ways that I might be hungry for glory there.
Mark Dever:
That’s good.
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s something I think is crucial.
Mark Dever:
That’s some hard won wisdom there I can tell.
Jonathan Leeman:
Thanks for your time.
Mark Dever:
Thanks, brother. Good conversation.
Why Do People Leave the Church?
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay, I want to ask you a mailbag question. And friends, remember that if you have a question for us, you can send them to mailbag@ninemarks.org. Dear 9Marks, this is from Pastor Rick.
Dear 9Marks, how would you counsel our pastoral staff to speak to people leaving our church for foolish reasons, assuming they’re going to another gospel-preaching church? Should we try to convince them to stay and confront what we think are foolish reasons to leave a church or just let them go with our blessing?
Mark Dever:
Probably let them go with your blessing.
Jonathan Leeman:
I’m going to fill that out.
Mark Dever:
Well, if they’re leaving for foolish reasons, it sounds like I’m dealing with somebody who’s on some level a fool, and they’re not going to be open to good reason, at least at this point, for whatever reason from you. So if they really are going to a gospel preaching place, they’re not running from a sin confrontation with a good friend in the church.
Love them. It’s a short race home, guys. Let them go to somebody else’s ministry. God can always grow them there. Maybe it’s some of them he’ll bring back to where you are, but you and I have no corner on the truth.
Jonathan Leeman:
And if I know you, Mark, at most I could see you asking one kind of side door question.
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
That might get them to think either then or later.
Mark Dever:
That’s right.
How do Pastors Profit from Preaching?
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, I think the more they have a sense of trust in me. Well, so I’ll give you a great example. There’s a brother of mine I love dearly. I have mountains of respect for who told me a year or two ago he was going to leave our church because of my preaching.
Well, I had a good enough friendship with him that I wasn’t worried he craved my approval or I craved his. And I really wanted to grow and learn from what he would say. So we went on a walk and I said, listen, do you mind just helping me understand what you mean by my preaching? Because I don’t want to, I don’t feel defensive.
I mean, a lot of people clearly profit from my preaching, so I’m not worried. I know I can’t preach, but I really respect you and love you. I’m not aware of any theological difference we have. So, I mean, help me understand more of what you’re wanting to see and I might really learn some important things in our preaching.
And we had a good… I think he was a little uncomfortable with the conversation, but I mean, we were on it for a problem. And that’s because I think he’s sincerely thankful for me and this church. But he was, I think, trying to be a good steward for himself and his wife in their spiritual state. And he laid out some particular aspects of things that he would like to see covered in preaching better and more thoroughly.
I don’t know that I knew everything he meant by that, but man, I certainly understood what he said. And I thought, you know, I thought like, well, yeah, no, actually, we do all that stuff. Maybe you just don’t hear about those Sundays. But the other part of me thought like, well, no, I think you’re right. I think we do tend to major on this and not that. And there are probably other sheep just like you, who are bleeding a little bit like that.
You know, can you give me some of this? And I need to be more aware of that in my preaching. So it’s a really edifying time. And we went on and talked about lots of other things. And he continues to this day to be a good friend of mine.
When that sheep is going someplace else, even if you don’t agree, even if you don’t think, well, I’m not really sure that reason is that good, or you’re going to find much better somewhere else in this way, you can probably speak to them where you can speak to them the more they’re doing okay spiritually and the more you trust them spiritually.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, and you’re demonstrating also the ability to learn from it.
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
Ask questions that would help you learn from it.
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
Great. Thank you.
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Subscribe to Pastors Talk
Pastors Talk
A weekly conversation between Jonathan Leeman and Mark Dever about practical aspects of the Christian life and pastoral ministry.
Subscribe and Listen to on: