Appendix 9. If You Are a Pastor

These days I often find myself lost in thought, because I am confused about whether pastors really must take part in politics. I think the pastor’s work is to nurture believers rightly through the word and help them serve as lamps as they live as politicians, business people and artists. Of course, with heretics coming forward to go into politics, there must be worry and much to think about. That is exactly why I think pastors must all the more keep to their own place. If they think about what mission the office of pastor received from God, the answer will be plain. The world is not a place for believers to stay in any case. Pastors, elders and believers alike are all citizens not of this world but of heaven. The mission God has entrusted to every church in the world is the salvation of souls. I think the pastor’s mission is to help believers make their decision through the word and go back out into the world to shine the light. When I see pastors, who ought to be taking on such precious work, saying they will go out into the world and do politics, I feel frustrated. To me it looks like rushing to take hold of the worldly power Jesus threw away.

It will be easy to understand if you look at the dishonest manager in Luke 16:1-15, who reduced people’s debts. Even though the dishonest manager reduced the debts of poor people, the master commended him, which means that what the master wanted, in the end, was for the manager to understand the hardship of the poor and weak and to forgive their debts. He wanted a manager who would forgive the debts of poor people who could not repay them by their own strength… of people worn out by the world’s work, so that they could gain strength and go on living. In God’s sight the wealth of this world is unrighteous. The moment the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil was eaten, everything in the world was cursed along with it, so all of it is unrighteous. Of course, when saved believers devote themselves to God’s work and use everything they need for living by faith, they will be commended as wise, like the dishonest manager. That is because the word telling us to be faithful even in unrighteous mammon is the very heart of God.

Everything in the world is unrighteous mammon, but if Christians who have received the Spirit of God are faithful with that wealth for the kingdom of God, God will entrust them with what is true. Unrighteous mammon does not mean money earned dishonestly. It means that the things of this world are unrighteous. It is like this: a person without the Spirit of Christ can only be a sinner, but a person who has received the Spirit of Christ is a Christian. Believers go out into the world and live diligently. Then they meet problems among people and in their circumstances, pour out all hundred measures of the word that had filled them, run up a debt of a hundred measures again, and come back to the church worn out. When that happens, pastors must play the part of forgiving a hundred measures, fifty measures, as in the Gospel of Luke, through the word, through counsel and through prayer. Only then can believers go back out into the fierce world and fight the spiritual war again.

If pastors turn their backs on such a precious mission and jump into the world’s politics, which they can see right in front of them, who can fill full the empty spirits of believers who are gasping from spiritual drought? We must think more deeply about this.

Pastors must think and think again about what God has entrusted to them. They must not move down the same road just because the world, Satan and heretics are moving. If you who are reading this are a pastor, I hope you will think about what you have received from God. If pastors do not step forward themselves but lead the believers God has entrusted to them into deeper truth and help them grow, even one such believer will fully serve as a lamp in the world. I earnestly hope pastors will never let the word out of their hands. If you are afraid of heretics taking power and unbelievers taking authority, I hope you will teach believers the truth all the more. You must help believers have spiritual discernment and look only to the Lord, help them know the will of God as they do politics, and teach them to do business with the word. You must help believers live their homes and lives with the word at the center. It is because they do not know the word that people abandon God the moment they become president. It is because pastors did not teach them that people turn on Christianity and oppress it the moment they take power.

Parents cannot put on the school bag and go to school themselves because their children are not doing well at their studies. They must help the child study on their own, and raise that child to be a mature person who helps others. I earnestly hope that you will look more deeply into the heart of God. When pastors pour the full word of truth into the spirits of believers who are looking only to their pastors’ mouths and longing to hear the truth, God will build up the nation, the people and the church.