Ron Higginbotham’s lesson last Shepherd’s Sunday Night was an important one. If you did not hear it, I strongly recommend you get the CD or ask Ron for a printed summary of his material. His general topic was life in the Body, and the exercise of our gifts for the Body. His point was that nowhere in scripture are we encouraged to devote ourselves to identifying our gifts. That we are a body, that we each have various gifts, that these gifts are to be employed in service to the Body are well established (Romans 12.3-8, I Corinthians 12.12-25, Ephesians 4.11-16, I Peter 4.10-11). Ron’s point – well taken and well overdue – is that we have been encouraged in seminars, and publications to devote ourselves to identifying these gifts, something the Bible never asks us to do.
The point of these passages is that the gifts we possess are for the greater good of the Body. It is an equation of selflessness and service joined to God’s power, the sum of which is the strength of the Body. Devoting ourselves to identifying what these gifts might be is an exercise in navel gazing, an activity that centers on self. One can think and think about one’s self, and develop one’s self, and try this for a while and that for a while until we are bored or truly challenged, and never really do anything of service for anyone – and still feel satisfied that we are doing God’s work. The thrust of the passages cited above is that we live outside of self. Devoting one’s self to identify one’s gifts is to devote one’s self to self. To stick with Paul’s metaphor in Romans 12, and I Corinthians 12 – The heart doesn’t ask: “I wonder what my gift might be?” A heart pumps blood. A lung oxygenates that blood without any help from self-actualization seminars.
According to human analysis Moses was qualified for his task, but he thought he wasn’t. David, by human standards, was not qualified to face Goliath, but he thought he was. In both instances these men just did it (“it” being what was before them to do in God’s service), and God empowered them to get “it” done. When the disciples were faced with a hungry crowd of thousands, and only one little boy’s lunch to go around, Jesus said “You feed them,” (Mark 6.37). And they did.
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might… (Ecclesiastes 9.10)
Which brings me to my apology to the Timothy Club of Ohio Valley College (Classes of ’86 & ’87). The preachers club at OVC was (is? I’ve lost track) called the Timothy club. When I was President of this club (1982-1984), I was asked once by a Jesuit priest, who was part of the North Central accrediting team, “Why ‘Timothy’?” I replied (much to the chagrin of president Stotts, although the Jesuit had a good laugh) “We tried the Diotrephes club but everyone nominated himself to be president; and we tried the Demas club, but no one showed up for meetings; so we tried the Timothy club and that seems to work.” Anyway, after I graduated, was in seminary, and working as the Associate Minister for the Rome (OH) Church of Christ, the Timothy Club asked me to speak on the Ministerial Call – is there such a thing as a call, and if so what is the nature of the call.
I told my slightly younger friends that a person did not receive a call, these post-apostolic days, the way Paul did on the Damascus road. But I did believe there was a call of sorts - that a call consisted of ability, opportunity, and desire. If a man lacked any of these three he should not consider ministry. That sounded sensible to preachers-in-training then (it has three points), but now I believe it to be nothing but baloney – several pounds of variety meat baloney – the kind of baloney that is mostly filler and tripe. And for portioning it out all those years ago I apologize.
What constitutes a call? – opportunity.
You feed them.
What ever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.
What ever God gives us to do, He expects us to do. We make the effort. He makes it happen – in His time, and in His way.
