Posting this week will continue, but may be spotty and erratic here and there. I am down in Monroe for their annual pastor’s conference. The lead off talks tonight were by Peter Leithart and Jeff Meyers, both of them very good. Jeff made one point that was worth the entire trip — what does Paul mean when he says in Colossians that in his sufferings, he fills up the balance of Christ’s suffering? Jeff mentioned that we mostly discuss what it doesn’t mean, which is fine as far as it goes, but at some point we have to get into what it actually means. Jeff pointed in the direction of shepherding by vicarious suffering — ministers learning to suffer as a way of bringing glory to the congregation. Chatting with him afterwards, it came out that many pastors have observed parts of the phenomenon, and teach younger ministers about it. “To be a minister you have to be thick-skinned and tender-hearted, etc.” But we don’t ground it in the text, and there are abundant texts in which it could be grounded. We don’t have a theology of the thing, and yet there are abundant resources in Scripture to provide us with that theology. Like I said, that was worth the trip.
Good day reading on the plane. Finished John Buchan’s Mr. Standfast, and P.G. Wodehouse’s Quick Service. I was coming to a pastor’s conference so I had to get my theology groove on.