In the New Testament we see time and again people marveling at the wisdom of Jesus. Do you ever do that? I think we hardly do these days. We are used to Jesus or we think he sounds crazy. So the modern approach tends to be; sit down and shut up. Do what Jesus says because he says so. It comes from misunderstanding the way authority works on this earth. It comes from misunderstanding Romans 13, because in the back of your head you don’t want anyone questioning you. How dare they! I am God’s anointed. I’m the Pastor, Elder, President, Leader or King, God decreed it.

But we really should love Jesus for his wisdom. We should be in awe, we are his children, we have the Spirit, why shouldn’t the spirit within us be moved by the same spirit in the ultimate incarnation? I think the fault lies with pastors. They are busy teaching us to do what Jesus said rather than teaching us to love what he has said. Of course there are churches that go off the deep end the other direction. All they have is love. Not love of anything or any moral standard, just love, whatever that means. And most often it means, love of self and immunity to change or repentance. The local incarnation of this is the Journey Church. Or whatever they want to not call themselves. But love must have an object. At least Brick got it, he loved Lamp.

It is the job of the pastor to be giving us the Gospel every week. To be making us fall more and more in love with Jesus and what he has done, is doing and will do on this earth in real ways. Jesus didn’t just show up and do amazing things like a freak show or a three ring circus. He gave us wisdom. He got to the root of what God was doing in the Old Testament, he was the root. But if pastors don’t constantly apply who Jesus was to every new situation, it become stagnant. It becomes platitudes on a dusty shelf that has been the same way for a generation and shows no signs of being updated. In other words it becomes meaningless. The words are the same, they are still there, they meant something once but not today. They were true even, they still may be, if only you could imagine the world when they were said. But that is just what we are missing. That is just what the job of the pastor is, to help us remember. But preaching to an audience from forty or even twenty years ago might be your schtick but things have changed. Wisdom, takes the truth of scripture and applies it to real lives, our own and the lives of others. It requires that we know the content on one side the Word of God, and that we know the audience on the other side. It’s easy to have one or the other. You could be lost in the clouds studying the minutia of every Greek mark on every manuscript, and have no idea how to communicate it to your audience or apply it to their lives. Or you could be completely chummy with your audience, but have no idea who Jesus was or what he was saying. To some degree this applies to every Christian and not just the teachers. We all will find ourselves communicating Jesus to someone, even if it’s only our own kids. Which is why the advice Paul gave Timothy on the subject of Church leadership is so important. The family is a training ground for further leadership. The same is also true of our United States. Things may be tried on a smaller level in counties or states before they are tried at a national level. Governors who run things well, may be elected as President. This is the same wisdom applied to the Church. If you can’t bridge the gap between the Gospel and your own children, who are a captive audience for as long as you wish, how are you going to do it in the Church a couple hours a week?

As a congregation it can be easy to fall into either side as well. It’s easy to hear a pastor every week up there laying out Greek vocabulary and sentence structure. Then you can go home and yell at your wife or gamble away the house payment on the internet. The pastors words leave your conscience free to do whatever you please, while you pride yourself that your pastor preaches the Word. And aren’t you great that your church is better than all the other churches because your pastor is so smart. But what good does this do anyone? This is not the gospel, this is selfishness, an agreement of selfishness for mutual self assurance. On the other hand if your pastor is just warm and fuzzy and spouts the love and understanding of every aspect of your life as if he followed you around taking notes this week, but doesn’t have a clue what the Bible actually says, you are in another fantasy. He never gives you anything hard to do, he just validates you as a person, and whatever you feel like you want to do. It’s, all a big ball of emotion between two people. But we should hold our pastors to something better. Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit gives the church, as a group, many gifts. He doesn’t leave us hanging, good leadership is promised to us. Now if we don’t recognize it or take advantage of it, or want it, we end up with one of the two pastors above. We should demand more.

This is not how Jesus taught. He was awing people by his knowledge of scripture and his understanding of people. We often write him off, as if he were cheating and not fully human, he just used his powers to know things and people. But this is heresy. Jesus grew in knowledge and understanding. He was fully man in every way. In addition you see Paul telling the church something similar. Don’t go the the secular judges to apply the law to your situation. You have the word of God. Paul shames them, can it be that there is no one amongst you to settle these things? Are you sheep without a shepherd? The Bible is clear, people get the leaders they deserve, be they kings or pastors. If the people are fools they will have foolish leadership. But if they are Christians, they should have Christ-like people leading them. People who get in your lives and mess things up because they love you.