In his book, John Piper states that he writes as a pastor. And in his, Wright retorts that he does as well. And, as coincidence would have it, so do I, making it a hat trick. But given the subject under discussion, it is not surprising that as many practical differences have arisen over the nature of the pastoral calling as have arisen over the nature of justification and imputation. I was at a luncheon once with N.T. Wright and a number of other men, and I recall that in the course of discussion, Wright described his friend Marcus Borg as a very confused Christian, one who passionately loves Jesus in his own way. Now Wright is in the forefront of those who are showing up the follies of the Jesus Seminar, and other related vaudeville acts. But he does it as a British gentleman, and will not bring (negative) implications of the argument down to individual persons. But this means that there are things that Paul routinely says that I cannot imagine coming out of Wright’s mouth. There are objections thrown at the apostle Paul that I cannot imagine being thrown at Wright.
In my days as an Arminian, before I went into the ministry, and also after, no one ever said to me, “Well, if what you are saying is true, then why does God still find fault? For who resists his will?” After I became a Calvinist, they started saying that to me all the time. I had a conversation once with an older, wiser “Arminian” pastor, and he saw someone do it to me right in front of him. He told me later that he thought I was tricking people into saying that because it was so obviously unbiblical. But there is no trick, really. Just say that God hardens whom He wants to harden and has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and watch the games begin.
But this rule also applies to what we say about those who are claiming to be among Abraham’s seed, but who are not. If we are of Paul, we will do the works of Paul. This means that we will identify some as “false brethren,” others as “dogs and evil workers,” and say of others that “their condemnation is just.” Now, here is the question — of what group in the Church today would Wright be willing to speak this way? Of what teachers would he say that they are false teachers, come in to spy out our liberty? My point here is not that Wright needs to draw the line in the same place that I would. The point is that (given the condition of the modern Church) if he never draws such a line, never fights the wolves within the fold, calling them wolves as he does so, then he is not being Pauline. And my point is not that Wright is not resisting false teaching — he most certainly is, and in a number of quarters, more effectively than a number of conservative defenders of the faith who eat broken up shards of truth for breakfast. But Wright still resists drawing appropriate Pauline conclusions about his adversaries. He does not have the bar set too low on what constitutes a legitimate matter for debate. He does seem to have the bar set too low on how to understand his discussion partners. And this means that I don’t think he can quite have his mind completely around Paul’s worldview yet.
Now when conservative pastors like Piper think of pastoral ministry, they frequently include the necessity of discipline in this, and when they do, they are being thoroughly Pauline. Discipline is not the whole of it, obviously, but it is an important part of it. A church that won’t discipline has AIDS — no way of fighting off infections. This is Paul applied, not to the grand vista of redemptive-historical thinking, but rather Paul applied to a baptized church member who wants to ditch his wife of twenty years from some little twinkie, and for reasons that have little to do with what God said to Abraham in Genesis. How would Paul apply his grand vision to an ordained minister who denied that the resurrection actually had to happen? Supposedly Jesus could still be in the grave, and we could all still be drawing inspiring thoughts from it. When this kind of thing happen, as it does with saddening regularity, it is necessary for pastors to bring the discipline of the gospel to bear. When you come down off the Mount of Transfiguration, you frequently have to deal with a demon-possessed boy in the valley.
Now my question is this. Does the apostle talk about individual discipline? And when he does, is he applying or ignoring what he and Wright have taught us about God’s plan of salvation of the whole world through Abraham?