In the most celebrated teaching in all human history, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ said this:
3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Matthew 6:3-6
This dominical teaching tells us something profound about how any minister of the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ, is meant to do the work of God. It also presents us with some unique challenges.
Revealing in Secret?: A Difficult Dilemma
It is ironic that a teaching about intentionally avoiding publicity and scorning notoriety has become the most public and noteworthy teaching of all time. If Jesus Christ were not God incarnate, the only Person genuinely worthy of recognition, one might think Jesus was Himself a kind of contradiction. After all, here is the most famous person in history, preaching about loving God and serving humanity in secret. While there may be many things Jesus did do in secret, many things we don’t know about (Jn 21:25), at some point in His life (around 30 years as most scholars believe) Jesus began a public ministry. In fact, He began the most famous ministry ever to have begun.
Of course, we know from the biblical revelation that God’s ultimate plan for the redemption of mankind was always meant to be an open, transparent, and widespread affair–something for all to see, to hear, and to even taste. The good news of Jesus Christ, according to Christ Himself, is not a secret or esoteric thing (Matt 28:16-20). It is not a mystery religion, an arcane cult or elitist cabal. The message of God in Christ has always been, and continues to be, something to be shouted from the rooftops. This is in spite of the fact it came through the most humble means: first in the form a nomadic, insignificant people group, then through an infant. Indeed, the idiom “to shout from the rooftops” originates with Jesus:
26 “So do not fear them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. 27 What I tell you in the darkness, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim on the housetops.
Matt 10:26-27
The message about God’s divine plan for humanity, which culminates in the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus, is a message of revelation–one of disclosure and not obscurity. It is a promise of total exposure: shedding light on who God is and on who we are. And so, on the one hand, the Gospel is essentially something that every Christian is commanded to proclaim openly and without shame (Rom 1:16). At the same time, however, we are commanded by the Lord of that Gospel to act and pray in secret, to be humble as He is humble (Phil 2:3-8), and to avoid both fame (Matt 6:1) and fortune (Matt 19:16-26). It is in light of these two commands: to be open, public and bold in proclaiming Christ, while also being self-deferential and meek that a certain moral and spiritual dilemma emerges.
This dilemma creates a real tension in the Christian life: how to proclaim, reveal, articulate or demonstrate something as profound as the Gospel, but in a way that draws little to no attention to oneself or one’s own works. This tension is especially poignant for those who find themselves particularly gifted in the work of spreading the Gospel message. For there is an unfortunate, yet inevitable, tendency that evolves when certain individuals discover they are able to communicate the Gospel in a way that successfully resonates with large numbers of people. We see this tendency already in the Exodus story, where God (or is it Moses) leads Israel out of bondage, and Israel repeatedly confuses the human mediator of salvation with the divine Savior. It is the conflation of the person communicating the message of the Gospel with the Message itself.
Confusing Ourselves for God and Being Confused For God
This confusion of messenger with Message has two aspects to it. From the side of the messenger, it could be the belief that God is working exclusively in them to bring about God’s will. Many preachers, evangelists, and church leaders have fallen into the trap of believing this particular lie: that apart from them God could not have done what He has done through them, or couldn’t continue to do what He is doing without them. The reality is while God does works uniquely through unique people, He never works exclusively through any one person–except for the Person of Christ. This requires some clarification.
When I say God does not work exclusively through anyone, what I mean is that God could use anyone to convey His message of salvation and redemption to the world. God’s revelation of Himself is not dependent on any particular person– again, other than Jesus who just is the revelation of God (Jn 14:7-15; Col 1:15-20). That said, any person who communicates the Gospel will, given his or her particular personality, communicate the Gospel in a way that is different from anyone else. God can, and will, use different kinds of people to communicate the Gospel in unique ways. Unlike in some mystery religions or occultism, the Holy Spirit does not destroy the individuality of the person He chooses to preach or teach the Gospel. The individual preacher or teacher does not lose his identity in virtue of being a vehicle for the Spirit.
The problem, however, emerges when we begin to think our uniqueness as individuals means God is using us in an exclusive way, meaning, that God needs our particular uniqueness in order to effectively reveal Himself and His purposes to the world. This false belief makes God’s work contingent upon our individual uniqueness, when, in fact, it is our uniqueness that is contingent upon God’s work. There is a lot of loose talk in the church today, especially the Evangelical church, about God anointing special people to do His work, as if He is relying on them and their special abilities to get His point across. But if there is one thing the Bible makes clear, it is that God does not choose special people, but that people are made special in virtue of God choosing them. But even then, not all who are chosen (e.g. Saul) live up to their calling, and, in fact, none live up to their choosing perfectly.
However, the self-delusion of the messenger in thinking God is working through them exclusively is usually not entirely the messenger’s own fault. The second aspect of this confusion is made by the audience, or recipients, of the Gospel. In the life of a particular church, or a larger ecclesial community, there is often an inappropriate degree or kind of attention or affection given to preachers, teachers or evangelists by those who are being preached to, taught or evangelized.
Before beginning to confuse uniqueness with something like exclusivity, many messengers of the Gospel have likely already experienced a great deal of inappropriate affirmation from their audiences. Of course, no preacher or teacher should expect, or want for, his congregation to treat him badly. Nor can any evangelist do God’s work and at the same time hope that everyone who hears him responds dismissively. However, the godly messenger of Christ will have to take every word of praise and every accolade with a tremendous grain of salt. For in each word of praise, no matter how innocently spoken, there is a seed of destruction.
Confusing the revelation of God with the one revealing it (Jesus Christ aside) is a serious spiritual dilemma. It is one that has caused the downfall of so many throughout the Church’s history. Many will say, as if by rote, that they are “just pointing to Jesus.” However, every true minister of the Gospel will agonize over that statement, always wondering and second-guessing about its genuineness. The line between knowing you are pointing to Jesus and not to yourself is a very blurry one. It is also a line Satan would love to erase completely.
In sum, the confusion of Gospel with Gospel messenger has two aspects to it. First, there is the giving of inappropriate affection or attention to Gods’ messengers by those hearing and receiving the Gospel message. Then, what usually follows, is the acceptance of that affection in such a way that it leads the messenger to start believing that he (or she) is the exclusive mouthpiece of God’s revelation because of his (or her) unique abilities. As we accept the accolades of others, especially those that talk of God working “uniquely” through us, we begin to confuse uniqueness with exclusivity. The thought creeps into our head that “no one else could do what I am doing,” and from there the downward decent begins.
Toiling in Obscurity, Rising to Preeminence
To “toil” means “to work extremely hard or incessantly, to labor intensely.” “Obscurity” means “the state of being unknown, inconspicuous, or unimportant.” The main method to combat the sin of pride as outlined above is to combine these two terms, then carry out their combined meaning. To toil in obscurity for Christ is perhaps the safest and most rewarding enterprise the Christian man or woman can pursue. Hard work for the Gospel without any accolade or acknowledgement is the primary means to mortify the flesh.
However, as with the life of any particular Christian, so is the life of the Church as a whole. Just as any particular endeavor for Christ may begin in obscurity, so too did the Church itself begin at the margins of society. And just as a particular Christian life can rise to preeminence, and the dangers associated with it become real, so too can the Church leave her humble beginnings and become a dominant force. The subtitle to sociologist Rodney Stark’s classic treatment of the rise of Christianity in the West, The Rise of Christianity, captures this historical reality: “How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries.”
And so, just as one might confuse a messenger of the Gospel with the Gospel Message, throughout history there has also been a confusion of Christ with His Church. As the Church rises in worldly power and influence, many conflate the institution of the Church with her Master. This most subtle of theological deceptions is particularly alive in the Roman Catholic tradition, where an ontological confusion of God and Church is still made today, 500+ years after the Reformation, and most egregiously as it applies to the doctrine of salvation. However, to try and articulate the ebb and flow of Church history, or the problems with Roman Catholic theology, is not the aim of this essay. Instead, let me make two points of application with regard to this tension that arises in virtue of being commanded to boldly proclaim the Gospel, while also diverting attention away from oneself so as to glorify Christ.
Two Ways to Help Avoid Preeminence of Personality
First, as stated, every good-faith endeavor to preach or teach Christ invariably begins in obscurity. However, to be successful is to welcome the spiritual threat just outlined. Thus, at the outset of any particular ministry, it should be established that one will strive to end one’s life and ministry in the same state of obscurity as one began it. This may sound hardly possible, especially for those ministers and preachers who become very famous in their lifetime. However, some have done a better job at “phasing out” than others.
Just as John the Baptist intended to decrease upon Jesus arriving on the scene (Jn 3:29-31), we too should intend to decrease our ministries at some point. This will make room for God to work through others coming after us. Pastors, especially of large churches, should, like Paul with Timothy, plan to phase themselves out of ministry so the next generation of leadership can come into its own. This does not mean that retired pastors need to stop working, for we should never stop doing God’s work. It simply means that one must find ways to step out of anything that might be rightly considered a position of preeminence. Today, this probably should include refraining from producing online content as well, or, at least, any project that might continue to draw a large audience to oneself.
Second, anyone desiring to be a voice of the Gospel of Jesus Christ must surround themselves from the start with people willing to tell them hard truths. It is too common in the Evangelical world to have celebrity Christians who openly boast about how many churches they have planted, or how many pastors they have trained or people they have baptized, and yet hardly anyone calls them to account for such bloviation. Further, when we hear pastors or church leaders name dropping about who they know in the secular world, or what mainstream media outlets they frequently appear on, or what big name publications they write for, we should be cautious of how they will end their race. It is also not wise for men of God to have biographies written about themselves, or movies made about themselves, while still alive. Why put oneself into that precarious spiritual position? These are all indicators of a messenger who is beginning to make the error of conflating his work or his reputation for God’s work and God’s reputation.
Pastors, teachers, and church leaders must recognize when they have attained a certain “celebrity status.” Then they must work to intentionally undermine that status. This will help safeguard their churches, the Gospel, and, in the end, their own souls. It will also help mitigate articles like this one, that never should be written, let alone conceived of.
Sarah Smith of Golders Green
In his classic novel, The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis muses about the eternal separation between heaven and hell. In the culminating scene, we are introduced to a powerful spirit in heaven, a lady who is accompanied by an entourage of spirit beings, joyfully dancing and heralding her presence. Her beauty is unsurpassed:
I cannot now remember whether she was naked or clothed. If she were naked, then it must have been the almost visible penumbra of her courtesy and joy which produces in my memory the illusion of a great and shining train that followed her across the happy grass. If she were clothed, then the illusion of nakedness is doubtless due to the clarity with which her innermost spirit shone through the clothes. For clothes in that country are not a disguise: the spiritual body lives along each thread and turns them into living organs. A robe or a crown is there as much one of the wearer’s features as a lip or an eye. But I have forgotten. And only partly do I remember the unbearable beauty of her face.
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
The fictional narrator understandably thinks this must be the Virgin Mary, but his guide, George MacDonald, corrects him. This woman is none other than Sarah Smith of Golders Green. In other words, on earth, this great being of light was a total nobody. When the narrator inquires about her status, Lewis puts these words in the mouth of his hero, MacDonald:
“Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country [heaven] and fame on Earth are two quite different things.”
Indeed fame on earth and fame in heaven are two different things. So different in fact, that to confuse one for the other may affect the final destination of the soul under consideration. That is a confusion we must all help each other to avoid, as its consequences could be perilous.
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