Sitting on the other side of retirement and looking back over my pastoral career has its moments. James describes the faith-filled person as someone who doesn't second-guess themselves (Eugene Peterson's take on being "double-minded" in James 1:6-7). The line between honest evaluation and second-guessing is a hairbreadth's wide at times, so I'm not sure which is going on here, but here goes:
Yesterday, my friend Chuck asked if I would be willing to lead the men's Bible study tonight, since he's laid up with his recent knee surgery. I assured him I would be glad to do so, then got to wondering what to do. I settled on leading them through an inductive study method whereby they read, observe, ask questions of the text, and come to their own conclusions about what it does or doesn't mean. As I look back on a lifetime of pastoral ministry, it seems I spent far more time preparing sermons and telling people what the Bible says than showing them how to discover for themselves what it says and means (this is the second-guessing part). Tonight I plan on changing that.
St. Paul in Ephesians 4 reminds us that the job of pastors/teachers is to "equip the saints for the work of ministry, so we all will be thoroughly equipped for every good work." So tonight, we're going to dig into a text and let each man see for himself how the Holy Spirit is our teacher. Maybe in retirement I'll be able to do for the Body of Christ what I didn't always do as effectively as I should have while working. We'll see. And in the meantime, I'm grateful that the Holy Spirit doesn't fit into anyone's pocket; he speaks to all who take the time and make the effort to dig and listen.
News Flash! Men's Group tonight was great, and one of the men's insights answered a question concerning the text that has haunted me for years. How neat is that?
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