Three Things Seminary Can’t Teach You - Nathan Busenitz
00:00:00.000 | The title of this seminar is "Things that Seminary Cannot Teach You," subtitled "The
00:00:09.080 | Intangible Qualities or Intangible Prerequisites Necessary for Ministry Usefulness."
00:00:17.920 | And I had the opportunity to give a very similar message in a chapel service at the Master
00:00:26.160 | Seminary last semester.
00:00:28.840 | And so some of this, as you hear it, you'll recognize that it's aimed at men training
00:00:33.880 | for ministry, but I think the import of the principles also apply to men who are currently
00:00:42.200 | in ministry.
00:00:43.840 | And so my hope and my prayer this afternoon is that this will be an encouragement to you
00:00:49.040 | to press on in faithfulness, even as I encouraged our seminary students last fall to press on
00:00:56.440 | in faithfulness as they prepare for a lifetime of doing what you men are already doing.
00:01:02.680 | And I'm certainly grateful for your faithfulness, grateful for the encouragement that it is
00:01:08.440 | to have 5,000 pastors descend on this campus and to just see the zeal and vigor for serving
00:01:18.420 | the Lord in each of your faces.
00:01:21.400 | And so even in this breakout session, just such an encouragement to have you men here.
00:01:26.000 | I'd like to open us in a word of prayer, and then we're going to jump right in.
00:01:30.720 | Heavenly Father, we give You thanks for Your many blessings, and even the rain that we're
00:01:36.280 | experiencing this afternoon, we recognize is a sign of Your provision and a reminder
00:01:41.940 | that all that we enjoy and all that we need, even the breath that we breathe, is a gift
00:01:46.900 | from You.
00:01:48.260 | Father, I'm grateful for these men.
00:01:49.840 | I'm grateful for their faithfulness, for their endurance, for their eagerness to serve You
00:01:56.940 | and to represent You as they preach Your Word and shepherd Your people.
00:02:02.860 | And I pray that this entire week would be a great encouragement to each of them.
00:02:07.020 | I know that them being here is a great encouragement to us, and we just celebrate the fact that
00:02:14.500 | all of this is a gift of Your grace, that we would be counted worthy to be saved by
00:02:21.960 | You through the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then counted as those who would be appointed
00:02:27.660 | to Your service in this way.
00:02:29.620 | What a privilege.
00:02:31.140 | And we ask that You would renew in our hearts the joy of what it means to serve You faithfully.
00:02:37.340 | We pray this in the name of Christ, our Savior.
00:02:40.420 | Amen.
00:02:41.420 | All right, so given our topic this afternoon, I am going to spend quite a bit of time talking
00:02:47.300 | about seminary education, and I'm going to talk a little bit about what I will call the
00:02:52.020 | tangibles of seminary education and then the intangibles of seminary education.
00:02:59.900 | Obviously, this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart as someone who's on the faculty
00:03:06.420 | here at the Master's Seminary.
00:03:07.820 | I have the privilege of serving as the Executive Vice President and Provost.
00:03:13.100 | And so stewarding seminary education is something that our faculty thinks about frequently.
00:03:20.900 | It's a constant thought on our minds, because we recognize that if James 3:1 is true, that
00:03:28.060 | let not many of you become teachers, knowing that as such you will receive a stricter judgment.
00:03:32.540 | If that's true for the teachers, how much more so is it true for the teachers of the
00:03:38.020 | teachers?
00:03:39.200 | And so we take our calling, our stewardship, our responsibility before the Lord very, very
00:03:44.820 | seriously.
00:03:47.980 | And when we think about seminary education and specifically the tangible side of it,
00:03:54.620 | and I'll explain what I mean by that in a little bit, we focus on the content of what
00:04:01.320 | we give to men in the classroom.
00:04:04.860 | We focus on things like sound doctrine and apologetics and evangelism.
00:04:09.980 | We focus on hermeneutics and homiletics, on preaching and delivery.
00:04:16.420 | All of these things, for lack of a better word, that can be communicated either through
00:04:22.900 | content that is given to them in a classroom setting or that which can be practiced in
00:04:28.860 | some sort of lab or ministry field experience.
00:04:34.980 | But there's another category that we're looking for in the men who come through the
00:04:39.000 | master's seminary, and it's what I call the intangible qualities that we're going
00:04:43.620 | to talk about this afternoon.
00:04:45.980 | These are things that cannot be taught in a classroom, but they are essential to ministry
00:04:51.620 | effectiveness.
00:04:53.800 | And I'm going to highlight three of those as we go through this material this afternoon,
00:04:59.160 | and we'll get to those in just a moment.
00:05:02.580 | When we think about seminary education, the history of seminary education, obviously we
00:05:06.680 | could go many, many centuries back into church history.
00:05:11.040 | Some examples that come to my mind would be John Calvin in Geneva who, in June of 1559,
00:05:18.000 | dedicated a building to the academy there in Geneva, known as the Geneva Academy.
00:05:25.280 | And it was there that John Calvin, along with Theodore Beza and others who were part of
00:05:30.240 | that movement in Geneva, trained up not only university students but also future pastors.
00:05:37.220 | And men would come from all around Europe, from Roman Catholic-controlled nations.
00:05:43.040 | They would come to Geneva, they would be trained, and they would be sent back.
00:05:47.440 | And that school even earned itself the reputation of being the school of death, known for that
00:05:54.440 | because, not because it was deadly difficult, though seminary sometimes is, but instead
00:05:59.520 | because after men were trained and sent back to those countries from which they had come,
00:06:05.680 | many experienced imprisonment, persecution, torture, and sometimes even martyrdom for
00:06:12.120 | the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:06:15.780 | We could fast-forward in church history a little bit to the time of Charles Spurgeon
00:06:20.380 | in the mid-19th century.
00:06:22.540 | It was in 1855 that Spurgeon began meeting with a man in his congregation who wanted
00:06:28.780 | to learn systematic theology.
00:06:31.740 | And those meetings went so well that soon many others were meeting with Spurgeon, and
00:06:37.580 | just nine years later, in 1864, he had over a hundred students who were meeting in what
00:06:44.580 | was called Spurgeon's Pastors College.
00:06:47.980 | By the time Charles Spurgeon died, more than 900 men had been trained, and even though
00:06:52.900 | Spurgeon himself never left Europe, he never preached outside of Europe, the 900 men whom
00:06:59.820 | he trained took his doctrine, which is really just biblical doctrine, and his style of preaching,
00:07:08.460 | preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, all around the globe.
00:07:14.120 | We could look for other examples in church history.
00:07:16.100 | We could go back to some of the early catechetical schools, even among the church fathers, but
00:07:22.320 | I believe that there is a precedent for seminary education even in the New Testament itself,
00:07:30.700 | that the history of seminary training goes all the way back to the New Testament, and
00:07:37.780 | I'd like to show that to you as we get started this afternoon by looking at a passage from
00:07:43.260 | the book of Acts in Acts chapter 19.
00:07:47.280 | So we're going to start in Acts chapter 19, and then we'll eventually make our way to
00:07:52.740 | the book of 2 Timothy, but I want to start in Acts chapter 19.
00:07:58.780 | This is Paul's third missionary journey, and in Acts chapter 19, Luke records Paul's time
00:08:07.300 | in Ephesus.
00:08:09.300 | He actually spends roughly three years in Ephesus, and for a significant portion of
00:08:15.700 | that time, Paul was engaged in pastoral training, and I think this is significant.
00:08:23.700 | It almost seems parenthetical to Luke's thought in verses 8 through 10, but I find in this
00:08:31.780 | parenthetical section a precedent for seminary education.
00:08:38.740 | Verse 8 of Acts chapter 19, Paul entered the synagogue, and he continued speaking out boldly
00:08:46.300 | for three months, and he was reasoning, and he was persuading them about the kingdom of
00:08:53.980 | God.
00:08:54.980 | And then verse 9, "But when some were becoming hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of
00:09:01.820 | the way before the people, he withdrew from them and took the disciples away with him,
00:09:08.940 | reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.
00:09:13.020 | And this took place for two years, so that all who lived in Asia heard the word of the
00:09:18.500 | Lord, both Jews and Greeks."
00:09:22.500 | Again, almost a parenthetical statement by Luke talking about Paul's time in Ephesus,
00:09:29.900 | and yet what do we see Paul doing here?
00:09:32.340 | So he enters into the synagogue, as of course was his custom.
00:09:36.100 | He preaches messages from the Old Testament Scriptures that would have convinced the Jewish
00:09:43.100 | listeners in that congregation that Jesus is the Messiah, and of course that pointed
00:09:48.360 | to the reality of the gospel, that he was crucified, buried, and rose again the third
00:09:53.860 | day.
00:09:54.860 | I think if we look at Acts 13 and other places in Acts, we can get a sense of exactly what
00:09:59.660 | Paul was teaching in the synagogue when he was declaring to them the kingdom of God.
00:10:06.760 | That took place, as Luke records here, for three months, and then after there was resistance,
00:10:13.820 | Paul decided that the hostility had reached a point at which it was no longer profitable
00:10:18.940 | for him to continue, and what did he do?
00:10:21.820 | He withdrew with the disciples, those who had embraced the Lord Jesus Christ in saving
00:10:26.860 | faith, and he met with them in a lecture hall there in Ephesus daily, Luke says, for a period
00:10:36.380 | of two years.
00:10:39.660 | Now we don't know who Tyrannus was.
00:10:42.820 | Most commentators think that he was a local teacher of probably rhetoric, and we don't
00:10:49.300 | know exactly how Paul gained use of the lecture hall that Tyrannus normally occupied.
00:10:55.860 | It's quite possible, and this is what most commentators think, that Tyrannus would have
00:11:00.140 | used the lecture hall in the early morning when it was cool, and in the evening when
00:11:04.380 | again the temperature was cool, but the lecture hall would have sat empty in the warm hours
00:11:09.900 | of the day.
00:11:10.900 | And in fact, there is a 4th century manuscript, which I realize is not authoritative because
00:11:18.100 | it's quite removed, but in this 4th century manuscript, there's a scribal note, specifically
00:11:23.860 | the scribal notes, what's not authoritative, and that scribal note says that Paul met with
00:11:30.380 | the disciples in the school of Tyrannus from the 5th hour of the day to the 10th hour of
00:11:36.400 | the day.
00:11:37.860 | The Roman day started at 6 a.m., so the 5th hour of the day would have been 11 a.m., and
00:11:43.380 | the 10th hour of the day, 4 p.m., which fits with the idea that Paul perhaps met with the
00:11:49.500 | disciples there in the school of Tyrannus in Ephesus in the noon and early afternoon
00:11:57.140 | hours when the lecture hall was not normally needed because the rest of the city was experiencing
00:12:04.500 | their sort of siesta time during the warm hours of the day.
00:12:09.240 | If that is at all accurate, that means that Paul spent roughly 5 hours a day, probably
00:12:16.300 | six days a week for a period of two years instructing in all things related to the kingdom
00:12:24.020 | of God, theology, sound doctrine, all of those categories, he instructed the disciples for
00:12:31.540 | a period of two years.
00:12:33.800 | If you just do the simple math on that, 52 weeks in a year, let's say 50 weeks in a year,
00:12:39.820 | six hours a day, excuse me, five hours a day, six days a week, that's 30 hours a week, 50
00:12:45.140 | weeks, 1,500 hours a year, that's roughly 3,000 hours of instruction that potentially
00:12:53.020 | Paul invested in these students in Ephesus during his third missionary journey.
00:12:59.820 | Now, again, the school of Tyrannus is not where the church met.
00:13:04.060 | The church met elsewhere in Ephesus, so you have really a precedent for seminary education
00:13:11.820 | where you have Paul meeting with students on a regular basis in a setting that's outside
00:13:18.700 | of but connected to the local church in which he is imparting to them sound doctrine over
00:13:24.980 | this period of time.
00:13:26.860 | And you'll notice the result of this, then, is verse 10, "As a result of Paul's instruction
00:13:34.740 | of these students in this training center, all of Asia," a reference to Asia Minor, so
00:13:41.300 | modern-day Turkey, "But all of Asia heard the gospel, the word of the Lord, both Jews
00:13:48.340 | and Greeks."
00:13:50.620 | And again, most commentators believe that as a result of Paul's training in Ephesus
00:13:56.060 | during his third missionary journey, this would have been 55, 56 AD, that the other
00:14:04.100 | churches of the seven churches of Revelation were planted as a result of this.
00:14:10.140 | And even the church in Colossae, you remember Epaphras in the church of Colossae, that Paul
00:14:15.620 | had never been to Colossae, and yet Epaphras, he knew Epaphras, Epaphras was Paul's disciple,
00:14:23.100 | there was Epaphras trained, most commentators believe he was trained here at the school
00:14:29.060 | of Tyrannus under Paul's tutelage in Ephesus, and then he went and planted the church in
00:14:34.660 | Colossae.
00:14:35.980 | And that's likely true of the churches that John will later write letters to in the book
00:14:42.980 | of Revelation, obviously Ephesus being one of those seven churches.
00:14:47.660 | So you see here in Acts 19, again, a prototype, a precedent for pastoral training where Paul
00:14:56.140 | is investing himself daily in these disciples, and the result of this is that they're going
00:15:02.040 | out throughout Asia Minor and they're planting churches throughout that part of the world,
00:15:09.300 | and the impact is incalculable in terms of the impact that these men trained by Paul
00:15:19.940 | had as they took the gospel throughout that part of the world.
00:15:25.300 | Now with that kind of as just a starting point, we see Paul at the end of Acts 19, there's
00:15:32.380 | a riot in Ephesus, you're familiar with that story, and then Acts 20, Paul leaves after
00:15:38.140 | spending more than two years in Ephesus, almost three years in Ephesus, Paul leaves, he goes
00:15:43.620 | through Macedonia at the beginning of Acts 20, he makes his way to Greece, and we know
00:15:49.280 | that he spent some time in Corinth.
00:15:52.320 | In fact, while he was in Ephesus on his third missionary journey, he wrote 1 Corinthians,
00:15:57.380 | then he wrote 2 Corinthians, then he actually goes to Corinth, and Luke just kind of goes
00:16:03.660 | over that quickly at the beginning of Acts chapter 20, while he was in Corinth he would
00:16:07.980 | have written the book of Romans.
00:16:10.820 | And then as he's coming back, he comes back and he makes his way to Troas, and you can
00:16:16.180 | see in Acts chapter 20 verse 4 that he's accompanied by a number of ministry partners, likely all
00:16:23.340 | men who were with him in the school of Tyrannus during that time in Ephesus.
00:16:30.780 | And among those men is Timothy, and I think that's a significant point that we're going
00:16:36.780 | to come back to later.
00:16:39.580 | Now if you keep reading in Acts chapter 20, you get to verses 8 to 10, which of course
00:16:43.460 | is the story of Eutychus, which I think is, well, it's really in the book of Acts because
00:16:52.540 | it's going to demonstrate for us that Paul is a genuine apostle who has the gift of an
00:16:58.860 | apostle and the ability to perform miraculous signs, including raising Eutychus from the
00:17:03.940 | dead.
00:17:04.940 | I always think that perhaps Luke included it just to encourage pastors, and especially
00:17:09.580 | seminary professors, that even the apostle Paul went long, and as a result of going long,
00:17:17.820 | even the apostle Paul had people fall asleep on him, and of course the lesson of the story
00:17:22.940 | there is if you're going to fall asleep, don't fall asleep next to an open window.
00:17:28.180 | But you know the story of Eutychus.
00:17:30.100 | But after Eutychus, after Troas, Paul then sails to Miletus, he's on his way to Jerusalem,
00:17:38.580 | and he calls the Ephesian elders to come and meet with him at Miletus.
00:17:46.100 | And Paul tells them that he's never going to go back to Ephesus, he won't see their
00:17:50.980 | faces again, but he gives them a pastoral charge in Acts 20 that I would argue really
00:17:59.460 | is, and I realize maybe I'm making some embellished connections here, but it really is the first
00:18:07.680 | seminary graduation address ever.
00:18:12.860 | Because you had Paul for two years in Ephesus investing in these men, and now after, again,
00:18:23.500 | more than two years, really almost three years that he was there in Ephesus, he meets with
00:18:27.860 | them again, and he's giving them a final pastoral charge.
00:18:33.860 | So I want to direct your attention to Acts 20, Acts 20, verse 18, and here we have, again,
00:18:48.380 | the Apostle Paul expressing to men whom he had invested so much, he says there in verse
00:18:59.620 | 18, "You yourselves know from the first day that I set forth in Asia, how I was with you
00:19:09.940 | the whole time, serving the Lord with all humility, and with tears, and with trials,
00:19:18.580 | and with trials which came upon us through the plots of the Jews, how I did not shrink
00:19:27.180 | back from declaring to you what was profitable, and from teaching you publicly, and from house
00:19:37.580 | to house."
00:19:39.800 | And then if you go all the way down to verse 27, "For I did not shrink back from declaring
00:19:46.060 | to you the whole purpose of God."
00:19:50.340 | And then he says, "Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock which the Holy Spirit
00:19:56.380 | has made you, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church
00:20:00.980 | of God, which he purchased with his own blood.
00:20:05.500 | I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock,
00:20:10.940 | and from among your own selves men will arise speaking perverse things to draw away the
00:20:17.860 | disciples after them.
00:20:20.420 | Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years
00:20:27.040 | I did not cease to admonish each of you with tears.
00:20:31.980 | And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up
00:20:37.700 | and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified."
00:20:45.580 | And he goes on to talk about the fact that even as he ministered among them, he did not
00:20:51.340 | covet any of their material possessions, that he worked with his own hands, that he was
00:20:56.380 | an example for them.
00:20:58.220 | In everything he says there, verse 35, "I showed you that by working hard in this manner
00:21:04.820 | you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord, that it is better to give than
00:21:10.980 | to receive."
00:21:13.060 | And I love at the end of that really, again, first century graduation message that you
00:21:22.100 | have them responding with tears because these men are so grateful for what the Apostle Paul
00:21:28.980 | has invested in them.
00:21:31.100 | And when we think about that as, again, sort of the first graduation service after the
00:21:36.820 | first seminary in Ephesus, Ephesus Theological Seminary we might call it, the School of Tyrannus,
00:21:44.220 | you have these men weeping because they know that they're not going to see Paul this side
00:21:51.180 | of heaven again.
00:21:53.460 | And we might ask ourselves, "What was the content of even Paul's instruction?"
00:21:57.860 | I think it's clear in this section that as Paul reflects back on what was happening in
00:22:03.100 | Acts 19, he says that, "I did not shrink back from declaring to you the whole purpose of
00:22:08.620 | God."
00:22:09.620 | He taught them everything that he could about the Scriptures, about sound doctrine, about
00:22:15.620 | pastoral ministry, about all of the categories that a good seminary education should include.
00:22:22.420 | And what was Paul's concern?
00:22:24.500 | His concern was that there would be, even among his own graduates, the men who had been
00:22:31.160 | with him for those two years in Ephesus, that there would be those who would, in their own
00:22:36.780 | arrogance, deviate from the truth and begin to mislead the disciples and misrepresent
00:22:46.180 | the truth of Jesus Christ.
00:22:48.820 | And then at the end, of course, you see his pastor's heart coming out, his own example
00:22:53.180 | of integrity, and the fact that he was praying with them, weeping with them, and just signs
00:22:59.860 | of Christian affection, even as he gets ready to board a ship and sail for Jerusalem.
00:23:07.380 | This all takes place, again, in Paul's third missionary journey, A.D. 55, A.D. 56, right
00:23:16.740 | in that time period, the middle of the sixth decade of the first century.
00:23:24.500 | I want you then to turn to the book of 2 Timothy, the book of 2 Timothy.
00:23:33.780 | And the reason I am rehearsing this is because roughly 10 to 12 years have passed since Paul's
00:23:48.220 | third missionary journey.
00:23:50.660 | Paul is, when he writes 2 Timothy, under imperial arrest, likely in the Mamertine dungeon in
00:23:59.140 | Rome.
00:24:00.140 | This is after the great fire of Rome in A.D. 64, when Nero begins to persecute Christians.
00:24:06.780 | And sometime between A.D. 64 and Nero's death in 68, both Peter and Paul were arrested and
00:24:14.740 | executed.
00:24:16.340 | So likely around A.D. 66 or 67, Paul finds himself in a dungeon writing a final inspired
00:24:27.660 | letter to Timothy, his son in the faith.
00:24:31.100 | And where is Timothy?
00:24:33.140 | Timothy is pastoring, and he's pastoring the church in Ephesus.
00:24:40.300 | And so when Paul says to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2.2, which if there was a theme verse for
00:24:46.320 | at least the Master's Seminary, and probably for many seminaries, it would be 2 Timothy
00:24:51.580 | 2.2, when Paul says, "The things that you heard from me in the presence of many witnesses,
00:24:58.380 | entrust these things to faithful men who will be able to teach others also," I believe that
00:25:06.140 | both Paul and Timothy are thinking back, not just in a general sense, to Paul's ministry
00:25:12.700 | over many decades, but specifically to the time in Ephesus on Paul's third missionary
00:25:20.460 | journey when Paul, along with Timothy, entrusted these things to the men that were gathered
00:25:26.860 | there at the school of Tyrannus.
00:25:30.140 | And now Timothy in Ephesus is being charged by Paul to continue this same kind of training.
00:25:37.820 | And of course, you have four generations mentioned here, you have Paul the Apostle, Timothy,
00:25:43.220 | faithful men, others also.
00:25:45.180 | And that becomes a great paradigm for discipleship ministry, even in a pastoral training context,
00:25:52.420 | as we think about entrusting the truth to the next generation.
00:25:56.660 | And when we look at the book of 2 Timothy as a whole, 2 Timothy highlights many of the
00:26:03.980 | very things that we seek to communicate to our students when they attend classes at the
00:26:10.820 | master's seminary.
00:26:12.820 | So chapter one, you have an emphasis on not being ashamed of the gospel, on retaining
00:26:18.400 | the doctrine of sound words, retain the standard of sound words, and on guarding that which
00:26:26.700 | has been entrusted to you.
00:26:28.960 | And then you come into chapter two, not only verse two, which we just talked about, but
00:26:33.700 | in the verses that follow, verses three through seven, Paul uses metaphors of an athlete,
00:26:39.580 | a farmer, and a soldier.
00:26:42.380 | And he says you're to be dedicated like an athlete who plays by the rules, and you're
00:26:47.540 | to be disciplined like a soldier, you're to be diligent like a farmer.
00:26:55.640 | And it's that kind of dedication and discipline and diligence that even a good seminary curriculum
00:27:02.780 | is intended to help teach.
00:27:08.580 | And seminary is hard because pastoral ministry is hard, and if you're going to be effective
00:27:13.860 | in pastoral ministry, you have to have that kind of dedication and discipline and diligence.
00:27:19.180 | And then verse eight of chapter two, remember Jesus Christ, that at the heart of all of
00:27:26.220 | it is the person and work of the Lord Jesus, and then Paul goes on in the subsequent verses
00:27:30.460 | to actually articulate the gospel.
00:27:33.080 | And then in chapter three of 2 Timothy, it's an emphasis on standing firm in the face of
00:27:40.180 | false doctrine, and a good seminary education teaches its students to stand firm in the
00:27:49.020 | face of error.
00:27:50.920 | And how do we do that?
00:27:52.140 | Well, if you look in verses 14 and 15 of 2 Timothy chapter three, it's by looking to
00:27:59.300 | the scriptures, which as Paul reminds Timothy in those particular verses, Timothy had known
00:28:05.140 | the scriptures from a young age, and it was the scriptures that were able to give him
00:28:10.000 | the truth that leads to salvation through faith in Christ.
00:28:14.580 | And then it's about the authority and the inspiration and the inerrancy and the sufficiency
00:28:21.460 | of scripture in verses 16 and 17, that all scripture is inspired of God, and therefore
00:28:28.900 | it is all that is needed so that the man of God may be complete, that he may be sufficient
00:28:35.540 | for every good work.
00:28:37.980 | And so you go from the word of God in as the power that leads to salvation to then the
00:28:45.900 | focus on the word of God being the power through the Holy Spirit that produces sanctification,
00:28:51.340 | the sufficiency of scripture, and then in chapter four, the emphasis on preaching.
00:28:57.100 | Preach the word in season and out of season.
00:28:59.940 | Do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
00:29:02.940 | Through the preaching of the word, you're going to lead your people into sound doctrine.
00:29:08.220 | And then verses six through eight, Paul kind of concludes by saying, "Look, my time has
00:29:12.460 | come to an end.
00:29:13.460 | I'm like a drink offering about to be poured out.
00:29:16.420 | I've run the race, I've fought the fight, I've finished the course, and I'm looking
00:29:20.700 | forward to the crown of righteousness that awaits me in heaven."
00:29:24.820 | And when you think about those themes, those themes really do summarize what a faithful
00:29:32.600 | seminary education ought to impart in its students, an understanding of the gospel,
00:29:39.500 | an understanding of sound doctrine, convictions that run deep such that students are willing
00:29:45.540 | to fight for, contend for, defend, and even die for those truths.
00:29:51.740 | The diligence and dedication and discipline of an athlete, a farmer, and a soldier, a
00:29:56.180 | love for the Lord Jesus Christ, an understanding of his gospel, an understanding of false doctrine
00:30:03.220 | and a willingness to contend against it, and a reliance on the authority and sufficiency
00:30:09.780 | and the proclamation of the word of God, and even an anticipation of one day entering into
00:30:16.580 | the glory of heaven and receiving the reward that God graciously gives to those who love
00:30:23.780 | him and love his appearing.
00:30:26.420 | All of that is in the book of 2 Timothy.
00:30:30.540 | And again, coming back to our theme, I would argue that those represent the tangibles of
00:30:40.300 | what a seminary education can provide because those are things that can be emphasized in
00:30:48.340 | a curriculum.
00:30:50.060 | They are realities and truths that can be communicated in a classroom.
00:30:56.700 | Now granted, the development of convictions is something that happens in the heart, but
00:31:00.140 | informing those convictions is what a good seminary education is all about.
00:31:06.220 | And I would argue that it was these very things that Paul was doing with his students at the
00:31:12.100 | school of Tyrannus 12 years earlier, which he's now calling Timothy to do, while Timothy
00:31:17.900 | is also pastoring in Ephesus, to continue that same work.
00:31:25.820 | Now that was all kind of my introduction.
00:31:30.260 | So this is not a homiletics model.
00:31:37.640 | That raises the question, though, about the intangibles of ministry effectiveness because
00:31:45.620 | I think Paul identifies a number of intangible qualities that are prerequisites, meaning
00:31:56.220 | they're required for ministry usefulness.
00:32:02.780 | And what I told our seminary students, and what I would say to anyone who is either aspiring
00:32:08.380 | to be a pastor or is currently serving in that role, is that these essentials are necessary
00:32:18.020 | for you to have a ministry that is honoring to the Lord and effective in His service.
00:32:26.140 | At the Master's Seminary, we talk a lot about wanting to train up men who will be known
00:32:31.180 | as master's men.
00:32:34.740 | And there's a sense in which when we say that, master's men, we are specifically referring
00:32:39.620 | to the fact that they are graduates of the Master's Seminary.
00:32:43.380 | I get that.
00:32:44.900 | But I want to use that idea and that concept not to talk about alumni of TMS.
00:32:52.840 | This is not that.
00:32:54.940 | What this is, is I want us to think about being those who are fit for the master's service.
00:33:03.780 | And in that sense, I want to call all of you, no matter where you went to seminary, or even
00:33:08.580 | if you haven't gone to seminary, to be a master's man.
00:33:13.580 | I think we find these intangible qualities at the end of 2 Timothy 2, in verses 14, all
00:33:20.340 | the way to the end of the chapter.
00:33:22.840 | And what's interesting is what you'll notice in verse 19, is Paul says, "The Lord knows
00:33:29.180 | those who are His."
00:33:31.420 | And then in verse 21, he emphasizes the fact that Timothy is to be one who is fit for the
00:33:37.540 | master's service.
00:33:39.880 | And then in verse 24, he says, "The Lord's bond servant is not quarrelsome."
00:33:46.740 | So there is an emphasis in this section on being one who is a servant or a slave of the
00:33:54.160 | master, the Lord Jesus Christ, and what it looks like to be faithful in service to Him.
00:34:02.060 | And what's interesting about the qualities that Paul emphasizes in this section is that
00:34:09.240 | they're not tangible things, they're intangible things.
00:34:15.540 | In other words, they're not the kinds of things that we can just put in a curriculum and download
00:34:21.160 | in a lecture.
00:34:22.760 | They are instead the work of the Spirit in a heart that's been regenerated as that heart
00:34:28.600 | and that life is conformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ.
00:34:35.060 | When I was growing up, I played some sports.
00:34:40.700 | I realized that I'm definitely in the nerd category of life, and that's okay, I embrace
00:34:45.820 | that.
00:34:46.820 | But I did actually play some sports growing up.
00:34:48.420 | I played 10 years of baseball.
00:34:51.200 | And then when I got into high school, I actually switched over and played four years of tennis
00:34:56.700 | at my local high school.
00:34:58.740 | And even in junior high, I played a little bit of flag football, I was even a center
00:35:02.100 | at one point, if you can believe that.
00:35:04.980 | And I played a little bit of basketball.
00:35:07.800 | And I had very good coaches who taught us the tangibles of each of those games, right?
00:35:17.060 | Because there are things that you can learn, there are skills, knowing how to hold the
00:35:21.180 | ball if you're gonna shoot a free throw correctly, understanding how to swing the bat, learning
00:35:27.580 | how to keep your eye on the ball for, that was a problem that I had sometimes, it just
00:35:34.060 | kept taking my eye off the ball.
00:35:37.280 | And those are the tangible things, they're the things, even the rules of the game, they're
00:35:41.340 | all things that can be taught and that can be practiced.
00:35:46.660 | But the thing that separates the mediocre athletes, and I was definitely in that category,
00:35:51.180 | in case there was any confusion, the thing that distinguishes the mediocre athletes from
00:35:57.780 | the elite athletes is that elite athletes not only understand the tangibles and they
00:36:04.540 | work hard at getting better at those things, they also understand the intangibles.
00:36:11.680 | There's like an X factor, they understand the game in a way that's different than the
00:36:16.740 | way that most people understand the game.
00:36:19.220 | They have qualities that if you were to ask their coach, their coach would say, "Those
00:36:23.600 | are things you can't teach."
00:36:28.380 | And here in 2 Timothy 2 at the end of the chapter, I think Paul identifies three of
00:36:35.300 | these intangible qualities that mark a master's man, or better said, they mark a man who is
00:36:44.380 | fit for the master's service.
00:36:49.960 | And these are the qualities that, quite honestly, we are looking for in our students, not because
00:36:58.260 | we think we can teach them these things in the classroom, but because we understand that
00:37:02.860 | these are essential to their future ministry success.
00:37:08.620 | And I mean success not in terms of numbers, I mean success in terms of faithfulness.
00:37:12.580 | And I would even be so bold as to suggest that if you do not cultivate these three intangible
00:37:19.900 | qualities in your own heart and life through the grace of God and through the work of His
00:37:24.220 | Spirit as He sanctifies you and conforms you into the image of the Master, that your ministry
00:37:30.460 | will end in failure if these things are not true about your life.
00:37:39.500 | So what are these intangibles?
00:37:46.140 | Maybe even before I start talking about these three intangibles, just one more comment as
00:37:54.820 | I'm thinking about 2 Timothy.
00:37:57.300 | And I think this really brings this whole thing home, at least it does for me, is you
00:38:02.440 | have back in Acts 20, Paul expressing to the Ephesian elders a warning, "Be on your guard.
00:38:11.780 | Be on your guard for yourself and for your flock because what's going to happen is there
00:38:18.180 | are going to be people, even from among you, who are going to rise up, they're going to
00:38:25.980 | speak perverse things, and they're going to seek to lead astray the disciples."
00:38:32.640 | That was the warning.
00:38:35.020 | If that was 10 to 12 years before Paul wrote this, then I don't think it's too much of
00:38:40.100 | a stretch to think that the five men that Paul names in 2 Timothy, those who had defected
00:38:48.940 | from the faith, could quite possibly have been among his students in Ephesus at the
00:38:56.460 | school of Tyrannus, the very ones that he was warning the Ephesian elders about.
00:39:03.260 | So you have phagellus and homogenies at the end of chapter 1.
00:39:08.240 | In this section in chapter 2, you have hymenaeus and phyletus.
00:39:12.600 | And then most infamous of all in chapter 4, you have demas.
00:39:18.900 | And here against the backdrop of that kind of defection, you have Paul urging Timothy
00:39:25.000 | to continue the very work that Paul started in Ephesus of training men and sending them
00:39:30.520 | out, training men and sending them out.
00:39:34.960 | But he reminds Timothy, both for Timothy and for those who would train under him, that
00:39:40.560 | there are these intangible requirements if you're going to be found faithful and be useful
00:39:47.300 | to the Master.
00:39:48.900 | The first one is in verses 14 to 19, and I would say it this way, it's a posture of humility
00:39:55.920 | that reveres the Word of God.
00:39:58.200 | A posture of humility that reveres the Word of God.
00:40:07.060 | So verse 14, Paul says, "Remind them of these things and solemnly charge them in the presence
00:40:16.280 | of God, not to wrangle about words which is useful and leads to the ruin of the hearers.
00:40:23.400 | But verse 15, be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not
00:40:29.920 | need to be ashamed, accurately handling the Word of truth, but avoid worldly and empty
00:40:36.120 | chatter for it will lead to further ungodliness.
00:40:40.440 | And their talk will spread like gangrene among whom are hymenaeus and phyletus, men who have
00:40:45.680 | gone astray from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already taken place and they
00:40:51.240 | upset the faith of many.
00:40:53.080 | Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands having this seal, the Lord knows who
00:40:59.320 | are his and everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness."
00:41:09.720 | Well here Paul is charging Timothy to pursue a posture of humility, especially in relationship
00:41:19.480 | to the Word of God.
00:41:22.100 | And so he begins by charging him to charge others in the presence of God himself.
00:41:28.320 | He invokes the very presence of God to humble Timothy and his hearers.
00:41:34.440 | And what does that humility look like?
00:41:36.560 | It looks like a submission to and a careful study of the scriptures.
00:41:44.000 | In fact, I'm reminded of one of my favorite verses in terms of defining true humility,
00:41:50.440 | Isaiah 66 verse 2, where God himself says, "To this one I will look, to the one who is
00:41:57.100 | humble, contrite of spirit, and who trembles at my word."
00:42:05.500 | What is humility?
00:42:07.920 | Well we could define humility in a number of different ways and there would be many
00:42:11.760 | passages that would come to mind.
00:42:13.900 | But I would argue that one of the primary expressions of humility is that humility trembles
00:42:20.000 | before and submits itself to the Word of God, such that those who raise themselves up against
00:42:28.320 | the Word of God demonstrate themselves to be and to possess the height of arrogance.
00:42:36.280 | And that certainly was true here with Hymenaeus and Philetus.
00:42:41.040 | And even if you were to go back and look at Acts chapter 20 and what Paul said in that
00:42:44.400 | first graduation message, he said to them, "I have conducted myself, I have served the
00:42:50.800 | Lord with all humility."
00:42:56.100 | And here he is warning Timothy to avoid the kind of arrogance that is sloppy or discards
00:43:05.520 | its treatment of scripture and instead loves to hear itself talk.
00:43:13.760 | And honestly when I read these verses, I know this isn't in the original context, but it's
00:43:19.040 | hard not to think of social media when you read all of this about the arrogance of wrangling
00:43:25.760 | about words and saying all sorts of nonsense, when we as those who are spokesmen for God
00:43:34.840 | are called and commissioned to be diligent and precise in our handling of the text.
00:43:43.520 | I don't know if you men have thought of it this way, but when you study hard for your
00:43:48.760 | next sermon, that is an expression of true humility.
00:43:55.920 | And when you phone it in, well, I don't know your heart.
00:44:03.400 | But isn't it interesting that in this context against the arrogance of the false teachers,
00:44:08.160 | what Paul urges Timothy to do is to be diligent, to be found as an approved workman who rightly
00:44:15.560 | handles the word of truth so that when he stands before his congregation and one day
00:44:21.400 | when he stands before his master, he need not be ashamed.
00:44:29.780 | This is a different topic for a different day, but I do think sometimes we've turned
00:44:35.320 | the pursuit of humility and even the idea of humility into something that is almost
00:44:40.240 | undefinable and equally unattainable.
00:44:43.640 | Sort of the idea that if I think I'm humble, then I'm not the moment I think I am.
00:44:49.320 | But when we look biblically at how Scripture defines humility, Scripture defines humility
00:44:54.480 | in very objective ways.
00:44:57.720 | Put on the mind of Christ, prefer one another above yourselves, seek the good of others,
00:45:03.640 | love your neighbor, and here in this passage in Isaiah 66 to be diligent to submit your
00:45:10.880 | life and your doctrine to the word of God.
00:45:15.680 | It's an expression of humility.
00:45:18.340 | And if you want to be useful in the master service, you must put on that kind of humble
00:45:26.000 | posture.
00:45:27.000 | And verse 19 really accentuates that point.
00:45:35.000 | It reminds us that everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness
00:45:43.320 | and even the statement before that, the Lord knows who are his.
00:45:50.560 | So in the presence of God himself, it's interesting to me that looking at verse 15, it's interesting
00:45:57.440 | to me, or 14 and 15, it's interesting to me that Paul will again invoke the very presence
00:46:04.360 | of God in this very letter, 2 Timothy chapter 4, and he'll invoke the presence of God before
00:46:11.560 | charging Timothy to preach.
00:46:14.900 | So the invoking of the presence of God ought to result in an utter awareness of our own
00:46:20.940 | unworthiness and a complete sense of humble desperation.
00:46:27.860 | And in light of and in view of the very presence of our sovereign God, Paul uses that picture
00:46:37.900 | to charge Timothy to do two things.
00:46:41.360 | One is to study well, and the other is to preach courageously.
00:46:47.820 | Both are expressions of humility.
00:46:51.380 | Well, there's a second intangible, it's in verses 20 to 23, and it is what I would call
00:47:04.940 | a pattern of holiness that reflects the character of God.
00:47:09.340 | So we have a posture of humility that reveres the word of God, and then secondly, a pattern
00:47:13.780 | of holiness that reflects the character of God.
00:47:18.780 | And so verse 20, "Now in a large house, there are not only gold and silver vessels, but
00:47:25.180 | also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor.
00:47:31.940 | Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor,
00:47:37.900 | sanctified," and here it is, "useful to the master, prepared for every good work," verse
00:47:44.140 | 22.
00:47:45.140 | "Now flee youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call
00:47:52.700 | on the Lord from a pure heart, but refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing
00:47:58.340 | that they produce quarrels."
00:48:07.020 | For our seminary students as men preparing for pastoral ministry, for you men as men
00:48:12.240 | who are already out in the trenches on the front lines, this is a sobering but helpful
00:48:19.580 | reminder that if you are going to be useful in the master's service, your life must be
00:48:26.620 | characterized by a pattern of personal holiness.
00:48:33.380 | And obviously it doesn't take much in our day and age to think of illustrations of those
00:48:41.900 | who have failed in this area and as a result lost their ministry influence.
00:48:50.100 | That's what Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 9, "I buffet my body, I run in such a way
00:48:55.300 | so that having preached to others, I will not myself be disqualified."
00:49:04.020 | And in the same way that I can think of examples of men who through a lack of humility have
00:49:14.100 | lost ministry influence, certainly I can think of examples of men who through a lack of personal
00:49:20.220 | purity have lost ministry influence.
00:49:26.740 | And the reality is that you cannot live in the pursuit of your own lusts and at the same
00:49:33.700 | time be useful in ministry for the Lord.
00:49:41.660 | I think of Robert Murray McShane who famously said that, "My people's greatest need is my
00:49:51.380 | own personal holiness."
00:49:58.220 | When I was growing up, had an extended family member who was in ministry and had an extramarital
00:50:09.780 | affair and was disqualified.
00:50:13.760 | When I was in my high school youth group, my high school pastor had to resign because
00:50:20.820 | he had done some things he wasn't supposed to do and he was disqualified.
00:50:27.620 | I remember coming to seminary and serving with men, studying with men, and then graduating
00:50:36.260 | with them and seeing them go off, and then you hear every once in a while the report
00:50:41.300 | of a guy who lost his ministry because he couldn't control his lust.
00:50:49.460 | And as someone who's training the next generation of men to go out, my plea to them and my plea
00:50:56.240 | to you men is if you are going to be fit for the Master's use, you must put to death the
00:51:03.620 | lust of the flesh, because one who is a Master's man cannot pursue his own lust and at the
00:51:10.380 | same time pursue the Lord.
00:51:14.900 | And I know you men know this, but it is one of the intangible essentials for ministry
00:51:21.060 | effectiveness and that is your own personal purity.
00:51:26.740 | Because if you are not a holy instrument, then you are not useful in the Master's service.
00:51:35.740 | And Paul's urging to Timothy is, "Timothy, keep yourself pure for the sake of ministry
00:51:44.140 | influence so that you might be one who is useful to the Lord."
00:51:54.140 | So a posture of humility that reveres the Word of God, a pattern of holiness that reflects
00:52:01.880 | the character of God, and the third thing would be what I call a pastor's heart, a pastor's
00:52:09.540 | heart that resembles the loving kindness of the Lord.
00:52:16.300 | A pastor's heart that resembles the loving kindness of the Lord.
00:52:23.020 | Verse 24 to the end of the chapter, "The Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome, but he
00:52:27.940 | must be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those
00:52:36.660 | who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge
00:52:42.060 | of the truth.
00:52:43.820 | And they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held
00:52:49.100 | captive by him to do his will."
00:52:55.660 | Verse 24 is such a great reminder, isn't it, that the Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome,
00:53:00.740 | but be kind to all, and patient when wronged, and engage even in disagreement with gentleness.
00:53:11.180 | Verse 25, I know I mentioned social media already in my first point, but I feel like
00:53:18.900 | it's hard to escape the implications of this verse for the way that even professing Christians
00:53:27.780 | engage with one another on social media.
00:53:31.500 | Imagine if we actually applied this verse to our ex-accounts, formerly known as Twitter.
00:53:38.820 | I feel like you always have to say that.
00:53:43.100 | How that would change our online interactions if we, as those who are the Lord's bondservants,
00:53:49.700 | were characterized not by being harsh, or by having zingers, or by embarrassing the
00:53:55.860 | opposition, but instead we're characterized by kindness, and patience, and gentleness,
00:54:02.420 | and trust in the Lord that if they are going to have a change of mind, it must be God who
00:54:08.660 | grants repentance.
00:54:12.260 | And I realize I'm preaching to the choir here, but I think it's a good reminder for all of
00:54:17.020 | us when we feel that inner indignation that someone on the internet is wrong that we remember
00:54:29.380 | that we are to be the Lord's bondservant, and this is how the Lord's bondservants respond.
00:54:39.940 | So these were the things that Paul instructs to Timothy with regard to how to be useful
00:54:47.340 | in ministry, both for Timothy and for the men who Timothy was to train, going back up
00:54:52.700 | to verse 2 of chapter 2.
00:54:56.060 | And I call them the intangibles, again, because these are character-related issues that get
00:55:02.520 | to the heart of a person's walk with the Lord.
00:55:07.940 | They're not things that can be learned in a classroom.
00:55:12.220 | Yes, in our classes we talk about humility, and we talk about holiness, and we talk about
00:55:17.780 | the kind of care and compassion that ought to characterize a pastor's heart, but the
00:55:23.980 | reality is these are things that can't just be learned in a book.
00:55:31.260 | They have to be cultivated through the power of the Holy Spirit and the truth of Scripture
00:55:38.700 | as the Spirit takes His Word and uses it to grow us in grace and appoint us to Christ.
00:55:49.780 | But I have known many graduates, not only of the Master's Seminary, but of other seminaries.
00:55:59.780 | I've known men who have excelled in all of the tangibles.
00:56:06.940 | They get great grades.
00:56:08.600 | They know all the answers.
00:56:10.500 | They have their systematic theology down.
00:56:14.260 | They can argue like no one else when it comes to apologetics.
00:56:19.580 | They could have a YouTube ministry or a Twitter ministry, and they could blow away the opponents.
00:56:29.260 | But men, if they're lacking a humble posture before the Word of God, if they're lacking
00:56:36.820 | a pattern of holiness that reflects the character of God, if they're lacking a pastor's heart
00:56:43.740 | that resembles the compassion of our Savior, they will not be successful in ministry, not
00:56:52.340 | in the way that actually matters.
00:56:56.220 | They will instead be like Hermogenes and Phagellus, Hymenaeus and Philetus and Demas, men who
00:57:05.580 | were arrogant, who were slaves to their own lusts, and who didn't care about the sheep
00:57:11.500 | at all.
00:57:13.060 | Well, I mentioned that Acts chapter 20 is, from my view, the first graduation service,
00:57:21.980 | but the reality is Timothy's graduation service didn't really happen until the end of his
00:57:27.340 | life.
00:57:28.340 | According to church tradition, Timothy pastored the church in Ephesus for roughly three decades,
00:57:36.140 | all the way into probably the late '80s, maybe even the early '90s.
00:57:41.740 | He was eventually killed when there was a Roman pagan festival taking place in Ephesus,
00:57:48.680 | and he went out to urge the people to stop worshiping idols, and he was mobbed and beaten
00:57:54.300 | so badly that he died several days later from his wounds.
00:57:59.500 | Timothy died as a martyr to the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:58:02.940 | Martyr is from a Greek word martus, which means witness.
00:58:05.220 | He was a witness to Christ even to the end.
00:58:08.860 | And Timothy's graduation service, just like the graduation service for any and all of
00:58:13.340 | us, the real graduation service took place when he left this life and entered into the
00:58:22.860 | presence of his Savior.
00:58:26.540 | And what is it that all of us long to hear our Savior and our Master say to us when we
00:58:34.700 | stand before Him on that day?
00:58:41.540 | "Amen."
00:58:45.140 | You cannot succeed in ministry in the way that really matters.
00:58:52.840 | In other words, in the way that meets with His approval so that He would say to us, "Well
00:58:58.980 | done, my good and faithful servant."
00:59:01.340 | You cannot minister in the way that is truly successful unless you cultivate these kinds
00:59:07.400 | of attitudes so that they are the character qualities that characterize your ministry,
00:59:16.340 | so that your people see you as a model of humble submission to the Word of God.
00:59:23.100 | And they know that that's true because every week you are preaching to them with precision
00:59:28.220 | and accuracy and faithfulness to the text.
00:59:32.940 | And they see you as a model of personal holiness.
00:59:37.580 | And they know that that's true because your life is above reproach and the things that
00:59:42.260 | you pursue are the opposite of those things that characterize worldliness.
00:59:49.680 | And they see in you a pattern of pastoral care, a heart of compassion and kindness that
00:59:57.620 | reflects the gentleness of the Savior Himself.
01:00:02.660 | Those are the ingredients that ensure His favor.
01:00:09.620 | And without them, you cannot succeed.
01:00:15.500 | So seminary can teach you a lot.
01:00:18.420 | And if you've never been to seminary, I'd love to talk to you about coming to TMS.
01:00:25.060 | But that's not really the point of this message.
01:00:28.020 | There are things that you cannot learn in a classroom, but they are essential to ministry,
01:00:33.340 | faithfulness, and effectiveness.
01:00:35.100 | If you are going to be useful to the Master, pursue humility, pursue holiness, and pursue
01:00:40.900 | a heart that reflects His kindness.
01:00:44.820 | Let's pray.
01:00:46.860 | Father, thank you for the opportunity to work through this text.
01:00:53.140 | So grateful for the truth of your Word and for your Holy Spirit who imparts that truth
01:01:04.220 | to our hearts and strengthens us where we are weak and uses us in spite of our failings.
01:01:10.820 | We know that if we are to be faithful, it is only by your grace.
01:01:15.860 | And so we ask that by your grace and for your glory, we might be found faithful, not for
01:01:20.780 | our sake, but for yours, and for the sake of our people, so that they might be built
01:01:28.860 | up as the body of Christ and that one day we might all appear before our Savior and
01:01:36.300 | join that great assembly that will sing His praise for all of eternity.
01:01:43.340 | It is for His glory that we pray these things.
01:01:46.740 | Thank you for these men, but we pray these things in the name of Christ, amen.
01:01:50.220 | [BLANK_AUDIO]