Grace Bible Church
Pastor-Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
Wednesday,
March 11, 2020
Fascinating tactics reveal if you’re studying the Bible from a Mature Pastor. Study and learn God’s Word.
66 books = 39 books in the OT, which is the revelation or the initiation of God before Christ; 27 books in the NT since the coming of Christ, together makes up the 66 books of the Bible.
In the Bible, God speaks to man concerning His thoughts, His ways or His actions, while, at the same time man listens to God to understand His ways.
This is also another reason why I’ve always seen myself, not as a chef, but as a waiter.
My responsibility is not to create or cook the meal, but my responsibility is to try and get it to the table, as it were, without messing it up.
What are the responsibilities of the head chef and the waiters?
The Head Chef is our Lord Jesus Christ and He is the one responsible for “cooking up” the spiritual food that is needed whereas the pastor-teacher is to feed the three categories of spiritual food that is needed.
The only pastor eligible to do this is the mature pastor.
Through his faithful Bible teaching, personal study, and avoiding high profile distractions, he advances in the PPOG to spiritual maturity and also leads his congregation there.
He recognizes the principle of Joh 3:30, “He increases . . . I decrease.”
At this time in the ancient world, there is no one teaching advanced doctrine and mystery doctrine like the apostle Paul.
A pastor can only lead his congregation to the point of his own doctrinal understanding and doctrinal intake.
There is no other pastor to lead the Philippians to spiritual maturity and ultra-supergrace.
2CO 11:28 Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure upon me of concern for all the churches.
God leaves Paul behind to lead the Philippians to spiritual maturity and the ultra-supergrace life.
A reversionistic pastor is a case of the blind leading the blind, both fall into the ditch of reversionism, Mat 15:10-14, LUK 6:39-40.
- The cosmic pastor is distracted by some form of works, crusades, or social action, being very moral, arrogant, and self-righteous.
- The baby or immature pastor has never learned Bible doctrine and so spends most of his time in the cosmic system.
He does evangelize his congregation weekly, plus giving them little moral lectures and preaching against taboos.
We are to beware that no one takes us captive through philosophy, empty deception, tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the cosmic system.
These are the areas that we need to beware of and not let enemy get in our path and deceive us from enjoying the life of God in the souls of man.
He high-profiles his own personality while low-profiling the Word of God.
- The third type of pastor is the adolescent pastor who teaches some truth but is distracted by various forms of high profile.
He is selling his own personality rather than teaching doctrine.
He has some truth, but it’s buried in his arrogance, inordinate ambition, programs, and gimmicks.
He can be a pseudo‑intellectual, a crusader, a bleeding heart, self‑righteous, a pleasing personality, or arrogant.
He appeals to those who are negative toward doctrine and his church at best is loaded up with sophomores in the spiritual life.
Because a pupil is not above his teacher and everyone, after he has been fully trained will be like his teacher, both the teacher and the congregation come under the satanic policy of evil; Luk 6:40.
The only pastor eligible is the mature pastor who through his faithful Bible teaching, personal study, and avoiding high profile distractions, he advances in the PPOG to spiritual maturity and leads his congregation there.
Joh 3:30, “He increases . . . I decrease.”
“Do you love me more than these?” It was a pres-act-ind of the verb agapao which is a reference to impersonal unconditional virtuous love.
The Lord was asking Peter if he had that type of love, that impersonal unconditional virtuous love, which emphasizes the virtue of the subject and not the object.
The Lord was saying you cannot serve Me without this virtue or this impersonal unconditional virtuous “agape love.”
When virtue love is directed toward God, another word is better to use which is phileo.
In verse 15, the Lord used agapao, He didn’t use phileo.
The Lord said, “do you agape-love Me more than these?”
We do not love the Lord because of who and what we are but who and what He is!
Personal love for God must come before impersonal unconditional agape love for all mankind.
The Lord said, “do you agape me”?
Peter said, “you know I phileo you”!
Peter used the pres-act-ind of phileo which means I keep on loving you personally because of Who You are.
He doesn’t even say that he loves the Lord more than the disciples, instead he is focusing in on agape verses phileo love.
He is saying, “Lord I agape the disciples but I phileo you.”
This is a command for all pastors to produce the action of the verb which is to feed new believers.
This is because “lambs” is the noun arnion which refers to baby sheep, lambs and therefore, analogous to the new believers.
The Lord is saying to Peter, “If you really love me personally you’re qualified to feed new believers.”
Arnion refers to the freshmen in the Christian life.
This is vital because no one ever remains the same spiritually, they are either new babes, or infants, sophomores, juniors or spiritually mature.
- New Converts
b. Ignorant Believers
c. Carnal believers or cosmic believers who have repented!
No man can function as a pastor-teacher with his eyes on people.
Secondly, the motivational virtue for the gift of pastor-teacher must come from personal love for TLJC.
If people are more important than the Lord the pastor becomes a people pleaser and therefore a loser-pastor.
Again, the Lord said, “do you agape me”?
Peter said, “You know I phileo you.”
You have two entirely different words in the verse and yet the English translates both words exactly the same.
If God the Holy Spirit intended for the words to be the same, He would have used the same words.
Joh 21:16 the Living Bible says, “Jesus repeated the question: “Simon, son of John, do you really love me?” “Yes, Lord,” Peter said, “you know I am your friend.”
The word “shepherd” is the pres-act-imp of poimaino which means to rule or clobber which is how the pastor-shepherd must function with some.
This time he used the accusative plural of probaton which is translated sheep and it refers to the sophomores in the Christian life.
With arrogance, a little knowledge is assumed to be omniscience, all knowledge.
When there is this high opinion of self-knowledge there is also the rejection of the authority of the pastor-teacher.
“Probation” are the sophomores and the sophomore stage is the most dangerous stage of the Christian life.
The pastor must possess “personal love for TLJC” to be effective in the teaching of Bible doctrine.
The pastor who truly loves the Lord will feed doctrine to the Lord’s people!
The word for “tend” is the pres-act-imp of bosko which is the command to moderately and prudently feed my humble sheep which is a reference to the seniors or the mature believers.
Poimaino means you have to kick or use that stick a shepherd carries!
There are only two categories of teachable believers basically; freshmen and seniors.
Prin-To live and die for TLJC is when we allow ourselves to be taken anywhere that the Lord desires us to go.
A reversionistic pastor is a case of the blind leading the blind, both fall into the ditch of reversionism.
Such a congregation becomes a program church.
There were eleven surviving apostles called in Mat 10:6, apostles to Israel.
When the dispensation changed, these eleven apostles to Israel became eleven apostles to the church.
In Act 1:15-26, they elected a replacement for Judas Iscariot = They elected Matthias but both candidates were not God’s choice.
God had chosen Saul of Tarsus to be the twelfth apostle.
In due time this became recognized after the conversion of Saul Tarsus to the apostle Paul and his spiritual advance.
While it seems like maybe two of the other apostles reached spiritual maturity and ultra-supergrace such as John and Peter, the others as far as we know never reached there.
Starting around Ad 96 to AD 192, you have the finest period of time to live in all of human history in the devil’s world, because doctrine had its’ maximum impact in the Roman Empire.