How do I know if I’m called to ministry?

Lots of people do think only theologians may lead the church. they forget that the first churches in Christianity were not lead by theologians nor by very highly educated people, except the ecclesiae lead by Luke and Paul.

The followers of Christ arranged the meetings to bring and to keep people in the faith. also today it are those who have come into the faith who should arrange meetings and make the best of a service to study the Word of God and to worship God.

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Each believer should take up his or her task according the talents God has given him or her. Each person in the Christian community should remember that it is God Who calls and gives the blessings. We should be pleased with God’s election unto salvation and treat it carefully (Matt 9:13; 1 Cor 1:9; 7:18, 22; Gal 1:6, 15; 1 Thess 2:12; 1 Tim 6:12; 2 Tim 1:9).

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We do have to follow God’s call and have to pursue the mission we are required to fulfil by Jesus Christ, going out into the world proclaiming the Gospel of the coming Kingdom. Those who are married, have no excuse saying they can not be a priest, pastor or ‘theologian‘. There is no obligation of celibacy. It may be more difficult as a married person to work for God and having a family, needing to work for a living, etc. when we do feel like we should engage ourselves in the work of God we should go for it. We should make work by studying the Bible and not as much all those theological books , writing of human beings, who were themselves not the chosen ones from God. Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Mordecai David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Habakkkuk, Zephania, Zecchariah, Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Peter and Jude were the men god has asked to write down His Words. Their writings we should take as the most important study material. Writings of others may be of help, but never may be receiving the priority, like they get at university and theology colleges.

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We always should remember that Jesus asked his disciples to proclaim the Word of God, and that is what each Christian should do. The biblical criteria for being qualified for ministry is not having a degree in theology but is most of all the will to be a servant for God. It is lowering yourself and giving yourself to take any position needed to have an ecclesia or church working and growing. To get life into an ecclesia there has first to be enough desire (1 Tim 3:1) and the right character to help all those in the group of believers. (1 Tim 3:2-7).

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God Himself has given the directions for creating, making and keeping a community of believers = an ecclesia or church. We should follow His directions and offer ourselves as a person willing to take up the necessary job in that ecclesia. Please never come with the excuse you are not a theologian, for not having to organise a bible study class, or to bring prayers in front of the community, or to lead a worship service.

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To remember

• How do I know if I’m called to ministry? = common question posed by men + women feeling a tug to full time vocational ministry.
• Each of us called to love our neighbor as ourselves + each of us is called to ministry of reconciliation that Paul speaks about in 2 Corinthians 5.
• some are called to pastoral ministry as a vocation.
• Thomas Oden’s book, Pastoral Theology, offers some very helpful + probing questions to ask yourself if you’ve received a “call” to life-long church ministry.
  • intellectual ability up to it
  • Having means of grace (worship, sacraments, Scripture) ingrained in lifestyl
  • How much willing to give up in order to serve
  • competent to lead a community of faith
  • communicate Christian message with persuasiveness and integrity
  • cultivating spiritual disciplines
  • capable of becoming competent interpreter of Scripture
• = good gut-check

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Preceding messages

Jehovah steep rock and fortress, source of insight

Looking for True Spirituality 7 Preaching of the Good News

Missionary action paradigm for all endeavours of the church

Good Morning January 25 We are theologians

Mental Enslavement and Sins Syndrome (MESS)

Luther on Being a Theologian: Oratio, Meditatio and Tentatio

The Pastor Theologian

Theology as Discipleship

What Makes a Theologian

What Should I Preach ?

How to Choose a Bible for Preaching

 

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Additional reading

1. To know Christ is filling life with meaning
2. A voice and a Word given for wisdom
3. Bible for you and for life
4. Bric-a-brac of the Bible
5. Necessity of a revelation of creation 10 Instructions for insight and wisdom
6. When believing in God’s existence and His son, possessing a divine legislation
7. Atonement And Fellowship 4/8Hope by faith and free gift
8. Your position about materialistic desires having conquered the world
9. Looking for a shepherd for the sheep and goats
10. Making church
11. Looking on what is going on and not being of it
12. Breathing to teach
13. Showing by the scriptures that …
14. Perishable non theologians daring to go out to preach
15. Different assessment criteria and a new language to be found for communicating the faith
16. What Should I Preach ?
17. Necessary to be known all over the earth
18. Salvation, trust and action in Jesus #3 as a Christian
19. A Living Faith #3 Faith put into action
20. A Christian has to have eyes and ears and a tongue to use in good ways
21. Proclaiming shalom, bringing good news of good things, announcing salvation
22. Preaching Christ Is Not Enough
23. Preaching by example
24. Daring to speak in multicultural environment
25. Beautiful feet of those who announce the good news
26. Preaching to an unbelieving world
27. Crisis man needed in this world
28. It is Today
29. Signs of the Last Days
30. Many forgot how Christ should be our anchor and our focus
31. When discouraged facing opposition
32. Learn how to go out into the world and proclaim the Good News of the coming Kingdom
33. Engaging the culture without losing the gospel
34. Counting sands and stars
35. The Big Conversation
36. The Big Conversation – Christadelphians in the United Kingdom
37. The Big conversation – Antagonists
38. Trying to get the youth inspired
39. Preachers should know and continue the task Jesus has given his followers
40. Being Missional
41. Theology without spirituality sterile academic exercise
42. Let us make sure we are not stiff-necked
43. A Synod to speak freely and to listen without reservations

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Related articles

• What Is a Christological Anthropology? (marccortez.com)
• Doing Local Theology (munsonmissions.org)
• Queering the Christian Experience (daily.jstor.org)
• Books that Answer Christian Questions (kennethdprice.com)
• WATCH: Donnie McClurkin Calls ‘Preachers of’ Series ‘Vulgar, Despicable, and Damning to the Body of Christ’ (blackchristiannews.com)
• Pastor Matt discusses his past experiences as an atheist – part 2 (winteryknight.com)
• Book Review: An Invitation to Christian Analytic Theology, by Thomas McCall (bennasmith.wordpress.com)
• What Makes a Theologian (steppingtoes.wordpress.com)
• To find ways of Godly understanding (fromguestwriters.wordpress.com)
• Romans 4 and the Sacraments (fromguestwriters.wordpress.com)

Praxis

This is a common question posed by men and women who are feeling a tug to full time vocational ministry. Now, I get it. In one sense we’re all called to ministry. Each of us is called to love our neighbor as ourselves and each of us is called to the ministry of reconciliation that Paul speaks about in 2 Corinthians 5. I’m all for this!

But while each of us is called to ministry in that way, I do believe some are called to pastoral ministry as a vocation. Thomas Oden, in his book, Pastoral Theology, offers some very helpful and probing questions to ask yourself if you think you’ve received a “call” to life-long church ministry.

The questions speak for themselves. They are as follows:

Is my intellectual ability up to it? Can I write complete sentences? Think critically? Spell sacrament? Speak intelligibly? Identify a leap in…

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Counterfeit Gospels

We’re fine with the idea of God being our saviour, but we’re not always keen on the notion of letting Him transform every area of our lives. Though many people take on an other god to be their saviour, not understanding that it was that man his heavenly Father Who allowed His only begotten son to be on this world to be a saviour for mankind, between all those who tried to safe people in their lives.

Many persons may find somebody who was there to be a saviour in their life,was it a parent, a teacher, a close friend or sometimes somebody they even did not know. So many people were saved from death by drowning, or by death by a car accident or house-fire by one of their fellow citizens. They had an other human saviour than the two saviours the Bible mentions.

The Mokvi Four Gospels 1300 Genealogy of Christ (part) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Gospels tell the story of the promise of the Most High Saviour which gave His Word for a saviour who became in the flesh some two thousand years ago. Without the Most High Saviour the other Saviour, the man “with an other Name” would not have been possible.

In Christendom there are still lots of people who do not realise the value of that human saviour. They think it is impossible for a human being to do the Will of God. They do not want to see that in history there was rally a man who managed to do not his will but the will of his heavenly Father. That man was the Jewish Nazarene Jeshua, better known today as Jesus Christ. It is about him that the Gospels and the letters of his disciples talk and let people see how that simple man was very special in his acts, his deeds and his words. That man was so inspired by the Words of his heavenly Father that he wanted others to know them very well and that they too would come to let others know those Words of the Only One True God, the God of Abraham and the God of Adam.

That man spoken of in the Gospels, Acts of apostles and letters of the apostles revealed those Words of his heavenly Father, to whom he often prayed and whom he praised like no other. One of the tasks Jesus gave was to share the love of God with others and to bring them the Gospel of the Good News.

We often emphasize sharing the gospel, but do we consider the reality of the outcome?

The apostle Paul poses this question also to the immigrant Gauls from Thrace, who gathered in the ecclesia (or church) in Galatia. For them he does not open his letter with a prayer of thanksgiving for the members of the community. In his correspondence with the Galatians, he skips the niceties and opts for a biting remark, signalling that something is drastically wrong.

“6  I am astonished that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you into the grace of Christ to a different gospel: 7 Which is not really not a gospel; but some who want to pervert the gospel of Christ are troubling you. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any gospel to you other than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have told you before, I tell you again, If anyone preaches any gospel to you other than the one you received, let him be accursed.” (Galatians 1:6-9 KJV_2011)

There had been persons who were ready to be saviours for the many people of Galatia. Each member of the ecclesia was called by some one by the grace of Christ, but awfully enough many where also called  to a different gospel, not that there is a different gospel, except there are some who are disturbing them and wanting to distort the gospel of Christ.

Still today we do find a travesty of the gospel of Christ in many church denominations. They made Jesus into their god and made human teachings their guide instead of heaving the infallible Word of God, the Bible, giving them guidance.

Many are trying to pervert the genuine good news of the Messiah, saying he could not do what he did when he was not the Creator himself. They minimise the act of his following the Will of God and ridicule his sacrificial offering, because God as an eternal Spirit can not die.

As a devout Jew, Paul at first also did not know very well the role of Jesus and also had misunderstood his function. Therefore he wanted protect the people from any false teaching which could dishonour the Only One True God. After he was confronted with heavenly voices he came to see the real Jesus and understand the Work of God. After Paul had seen the light he too knew the importance to bring forth the Good News that Jesus preached. He himself had also preached the gospel to the Galatians, so no wonder he was surprised they preferred to listen to false teachers who had infiltrated the community.

Instead of holding to the true teaching or even testing these teachers’ claims against the gospel message, the Galatians adopted a new, counterfeit gospel. Many of them thought they had to become Jews or had to take on a sort of Jewish faith which included the Jewish or the Roman or the Greek traditions or all those traditions which were going on at that time.
Paul interrogates the Galatians, who may have been affected by the teaching of people who wanted them to adopt Jewish legal requirements, asking, “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:2–3).

The simple gospel had been cluttered by attempts to remain obedient to the law. The believers were no longer living in the Spirit. And in other communities there where also false teachers giving other functions to Christ and making his teachings interwoven with Greek thought.

Paul his warnings about false teachers is not just about the teachings of one subject, be it Jewish teaching or other. In the acts of the apostles we hear the warning for such false teachings which entered already very soon the community of followers of Christ. Those false teachings would even bring the church into a serious schism in 325 when the Roman emperor managed to get his will , having Greek-Roman culture defining the new state religion: Christendom.

From the 4° century there were not only some who were disturbing the real followers of Christ and who wanted to distort the gospel of Christ, the majority of the Christian community got poisoned by a teaching which was called to be a doctrine to be taken or otherwise you would become excluded of the community. Wanting to belong to the community the majority of people preferred to choose for the security to belong to the community of man instead of being an outsider with other ideas and not able to enjoy the festivals and pagan festivals or going to meet with a very small community of real believers.

Too many people have chosen the easy way, though Christ warned that following him would not be easy. They choose following the world, being of the world, instead of being of God, following His son and God His will.

Those who preach have to warn people for that dilemma. The listeners as well as the preacher do have to make a choice. either they can enjoy the human teachings or go for the heavenly (or God given) teachings and stick to the Words of the Bible instead of the words of so called theologians.

Do we think of becoming a Christian — getting saved — as the end of the journey?

When people go out to preach the Word of God and preach the Gospel of Christ, they should teach those things which Jesus Christ believed in and taught, like the being of One God, the coming of the end-times, the coming of a resurrection of the dead, the coming of the Kingdom of God, and should show the world how Christ made it possible that the Grace of God comes to each of us, though we are all sinners, we all can be saved by the offer, the ransom of Christ Jesus, the man from Nazareth.

The reality of the gospel should affect all areas of our lives, which can now be used to give God the glory. Jesus did not wanted to be worshipped, and worshipped himself the only One God. So should we.

“Son of man” appears 25 times in Luke, a copy (c. 800) shown here. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We should focus on the son of God but may not be blinded by him and get to place him on a higher pied de stall he deserves.

Our entire lives — our thought processes, our ideals and theologies, our relationships — should reflect Christ and be shaped by the Spirit. The gospel isn’t for one moment. It’s going to transform everything.

We should let the words of the Gospel mould us and have ourselves transformed by it.

Have you, without realizing it, turned from the gospel? What area of your life needs to be transformed?

 

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Please do also find some background reading:

1. Seeing or not seeing and willingness to find God
2. Attributes to God, titles ascribed to Him or Names given to JHWH, the God of gods.
3. God of gods.
4. Only one God
5. God is one
6. God of gods
7. The Trinity – the Truth
8. Jesus Messiah
9. Jesus begotten Son of God #10 Coming down spirit or flesh seed of Eve
10. Jesus begotten Son of God #13 Pre-existence excluding virginal birth of the Only One Transposed
11. Jesus begotten Son of God #17 Adam, Eve, Mary and Christianity’s central figure
12. Jesus begotten Son of God #18 Believing in inhuman or human person
13. Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #4 Words in Scripture
14. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #14 Prayer #12 The other name
15. Wishing to do the will of God
16. God’s promises
17. Bible, Word of God, inspired and infallible
18. Bible a guide – Bijbel als gids
19. People Seeking for God 3 Laws and directions
20. Because men choose to go their own way
21. Listening and Praying to the Father
22. Our relationship with God, Jesus and eachother
23. Joining for a new year in the assurance to be bought with a price
24. The Cares of Life
25. “Unnoticed”
26. Love and forgive this friday
27. Being Religious and Spiritual 5 Gnostic influences
28. Being Religious and Spiritual 7 Transcendence to become one
29. Something Most False Christians Have In Common
30. Irminsul, dies natalis solis invicti, birthday of light, Christmas and Saturnalia
31. Character transformed by the influence of our fellowships

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Related articles

• Dig for Friday the 7th of November…..check out the results of a lack of preaching of the true Word of God…..1 Timothy 1 v 5 (heilanword.wordpress.com)
  Hypocrisy and lack of love is an accusation that I’ve often heard spoken against the church in general and against individual churches in particular.

  Paul tells us why this could be true.

  He says it is because of a lack of preaching of the true Word of God (1 Timothy 1 v 5).

  In verse 3 Paul exhorts Timothy to speak out against people teaching a heretical message and not the true Gospel.

  He is telling Timothy to ensure that the true Gospel is preached, the Gospel of grace, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

  If he adheres to this i.e. ensures that the true Word of God is preached, he will see love (charity) displayed and will see a lack of hypocrisy (1 Timothy 1 v 5).

  The opposite of teaching the Gospel of grace is teaching the law (1 Timothy 1 v 6 and 7), and from the previous verses we can see a danger of this.

  Teaching law (or not the true Gospel for new covenant believers) will results in hypocrisy and a lack of love; that is a powerful truth.

  Paul commands Timothy to ensure that no other doctrine, other than the grace of Jesus, is preached in the church.

• Don’t Be Ashamed (kristiankennedy.wordpress.com)
  Are you afraid or ashamed to share the message of Jesus Christ? As believers, we are to share the message of the Gospel and the love of our Heavenly Father. Here is a verse that warns us against being ashamed of the Gospel:
• Jesus’ life is a fact of history (christianmotivations.weebly.com)
  The Four Gospels tell the facts of Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection. They are not made-up fables like the insane adventures of the Greek gods. No, the powerful miracles the apostles describe actually happened! Peter, John and Matthew were eye-witnesses to all this.

  In addition, tens of thousands of people from one end of Israel to the other had met Jesus and seen His miracles. As Paul pointed out, “This thing was not done on a corner” (Acts 26:26).

  My dear friends, make no mistake: the Four Gospels are accurate historical reports. Many people are making huge efforts trying to dismiss the Bible and telling people that miracles are things of the past. But we have the Bible that declares

• The Simple Gospel of Jesus Christ (yelobrd777.com)
  God the Father sent His son to die for us. We now have Christ living His life through us. He loves us beyond condition. “Dad ain’t mad” as Ken says at the station. We simply believe it, live it and surrender to it.

  It is not complicated. No frills, no fund raising commitment card, no guilt and condemnation. Over the years I have heard time and time again about how a song or short one minute moment of encouragement has gotten someone through a trying day…or hour.

• Minimizing the Cross of Jesus Christ (dailybibleplan.com)
  Paul was very concerned about the Galatians.  The Galatians had started to believe the Judaizers who preached that Gentiles had to become Jews before they could become Christians.  They had started to impose Jewish legalism stating that works could earn God’s favor.  This false gospel minimized the importance of the death of Jesus Christ by implying that justification (salvation) could be gained through works.
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  When a person thinks that “living right” can secure salvation, that person is essentially saying that Jesus did not have to die, but we know that Jesus opened the door to salvation for us.  When it comes to eternal life, Christ is the only key that fits that lock.
• The Revelation Of Jesus Christ: “I will not blot out his name out of the book of life” (mydelightandmycounsellors.wordpress.com)