Dan Phillips: "What verse in the Bible talks about a pastor's 'call'?"

Though the “chapter and verse” thing is not the only way we derive truth from Scripture, it contains a lot of weight. Of course there are doctrines that we believe essential that are a construct of biblical concepts (the Trinity). But much of our “fundamentals” are precisely contained in one verse.

Dan has a great point, especially when you consider it this way: how much “weight” do we place on a call to ministry in today’s IFB churches? Compared to the weight we place on salvation, believer’s baptism, and holy living? Now of those 4 (call-to-ministry, salvation, baptism, holiness), can you find the one that has no basis in Scripture compared to how high our expectations are for it?

Even our mode of baptism can be clearly inferred from Scripture. And we make that inference, and preach it resoundingly from our pulpits. Why does something with no clear definition from Scripture - nor clear inference! - get such emphasis in our pulpits and classrooms today? It’s like it was an idea that got handed down to generation after generation and got elevated to an unquestionable status over time. It seems like I ought to be able to come up with a word for that….

After he raises the “chapter and verse” question, he proceeds to explore a variety of forms of biblical evidence that might support the call idea. He considers narrative evidence from the OT, then NT passages specifically on the topic of pastoral qualifications and some reasoning having to due what people usually mean by the “call.”

The “method” he’s using is summed up here:

Do you believe in the sufficiency of Scripture? Really? Then it should have an in-context, sufficient answer, shouldn’t it?

There is no problem with his approach. It’s simply this: if we tacitly claim that something is required by Scripture, the Scripture has to actually require it. Otherwise, our claim is falsified.

How does this “approach” fail?

A preemptive observation—I often see folks confuse two different categories when interacting with biblical evidence:
Category 1: biblical requirement
Category 2: biblical permission

These are two different things and which category your claim falls into determines what kind of biblical evidence you need to support it. If your claim is that Scripture allows men to claim they have a call to preach (or that it is biblically possible to have a call), you don’t really need a verse that says so. The absence of prohibition makes a pretty good case. But if your claim is that a call to ministry is required by Scripture—then Scripture has to actually say it’s required either by direct statement or by the collective meaning of multiple statements (i.e, by clear inference).

Don’t ask, “Does the Scripture require a call to the ministry?” or “Does the Scripture allow for a call to the ministry?”

Instead ask, “Does the Scripture give guidance concerning who should be a pastor? If so, what guidance does it give?” and work from there.

Sometimes the question, “What do I want to know?” gets in the way of “What does the biblical writer want to say?”

Yet another case of one demanding that God do things a way man understands and approves of. Maybe it was just a “ureka I have found something” to blog about, moment

Does he also not believe God has a “career” plan for non-ministerial Christians? I seem to have misplaced my copy of “Decision Making and the Will of God”.

To “call” gives the impression that one is deligated or designated.

Since Eph 4:11-12 says that God has “given” church leaders then there must be some sort of designation or call. Even though we may not understand it this verse says God has “given…some as pastors”. Unless you want to go the route of arguing that God “gave” a position without giving the person to fill it. I think that would take some semantic gymnastics that would be worthy of a gold metal.

How come we don’t have the same demand for a verse talking about a _____’s call? (barista/copyeditor/Amazon Associate/moneylender/limo driver/school trustee/etc.)

Why do people who insist on the sanctity of all jobs, all ground is holy ground and every bush a burning bush, etc., also encourage young people to seek the “highest calling” (their own jobs/the pastor’s call)?

[Ken Woodard] To “call” gives the impression that one is deligated or designated.

Since Eph 4:11-12 says that God has “given” church leaders then there must be some sort of designation or call. Even though we may not understand it this verse says God has “given…some as pastors”. Unless you want to go the route of arguing that God “gave” a position without giving the person to fill it. I think that would take some semantic gymnastics that would be worthy of a gold metal.

In this sense it is the church that does the calling.

I don’t see why the word “given” demands a call, specifically. It just means that God has put people in those positions. That could be through a call, through a decision, or through attrition if you like, but it doesn’t mean there has to be a call.

If there has to be a call, then how do we define it? We have so much language in Scripture discussing God’s call for us to come to Him in salvation - why is there none for us becoming His ministers? There are only requirements and exclusions, nothing about how this should be accomplished.
When anyone of a charismatic bent says “…and I just knew that this is what the Lord wanted me to do”, we roll our eyes and say “the canon is closed” or “God doesn’t speak that way today.” But when a young man in a Baptist church says “…and I just knew the Lord was calling me to preach”, we shout hallelujah and give thanks. Why do we get to do it, but they don’t? I don’t see the functional difference. Why is a call to ministry the only acceptable form of Special Revelation outside of Scripture? You can’t very well preach both closed canon and the special revelation of a call.

The requirements for being a Pastor are very similar in category to the requirements for being a Deacon. More than that, we have a historical account (Acts 6:1-7) for how and why the first Deacons were chosen. Why do we never hear about a Deacon’s call to ministry? Whatever the answer, wouldn’t a similar line of thinking apply to a Pastor? There is a complete lack of emphasis on what the Deacon believed about his service. For a Pastor as well, there is not one word about his opinion of the matter, other than 1 Tim 3:1.
If a call to ministry is so critical that a man really can’t consider being a Pastor unless he experiences it - where does God’s Word define how a man might know he is called? You mean to tell me that God provided a way for a young man to know how to cleanse his way (God’s Word), how to have knowledge and discretion (Proverbs), how to avoid the evil woman (wisdom); but when it comes to being His chosen servant, responsible for the leadership of an entire group of people, God has these expectations about how that should happen without saying a word about it? And we wonder why some groups of Pastors get accused of cult-like, “good-old-boy”, secret club behavior. They have the secret that no one else does.

What about Assistant Pastors? Youth Pastors? Children’s Pastors? Music Pastors? Administrative/Executive Pastors? Visitation Pastors? What about a man who desires to minister, but has no desire to be a Senior Pastor? What about a man who hears regularly from others that God has clearly equipped him for ministry, has been told to seek the ministry by his Pastor(s), and meets all the qualifications for ministry and desires to minister, but hasn’t had the clouds part and heard a voice from heaven?
What of a man who claims he is called, but has not sought a ministry position - even in name - for years? Dare anyone who believes in a call to ministry question such a man’s claim? On what grounds would we question such a man’s claim? Can such a questioning be done without using OT prophet passages for support?

I don’t see a way to reconcile the sufficiency of Scripture with an extra-biblical call. One or the other, but how do we hold both?

See the July/August 2012 FrontLine for Mark Minnick’s article on this subject.

He cites a sermon by John Gill (from an ordination) where Gill interprets the Eph 4.11 passage this way:

The foundation of the ministry is in the gift of Christ. Let me answer that question which he put once to the Pharisees. “The baptism of John, is it from heaven? or is it of men?” In like manner, I say, The ministry, is it from heaven? or is it of men? The answer is in the text, “He gave;” — it is the gift of Christ.

Obviously Gill isn’t Scripture, but that is his interpretation.

Minnick goes on to argue that though there are many varied ways in which men become aware of the ‘call’, ‘leading’, what have you, there are Scriptural guidelines for other Christians to recognize the call or gift in men who become pastors:

1. He Gives Those Whose Testimony is Blameless
2. He Gives Those Whom His Spirit Has Spiritually Gifted
3. God’s People Recognize Those Whom Christ Gives
4. He Gives Those Who Earnestly Desire this Office

That’s just a synopsis, you will have to order the magazine to get the full article, it’s not available online yet except for subscribers.

BTW, I don’t offer this as a supporter of the notion of a specific call to the ministry for every preacher. I have tended to hold a looser view of this topic, but one should consider all sides in a discussion like this. Minnick offers, as usual, a well-thought out position on the point which should be considered. Here is his conclusion, although I am not sure I agree with him 100% on each point he makes:

In the end, we can be sure of this: it is not God’s way to set men on a bleak course of futile searching to discover whether or not they are called. He Himself, and He alone, takes to Himself the entire responsibility for calling men into ministry. They do not call themselves. He calls them. When He does it, He does it convincingly. We may leave the entire matter confidently with Him.

It appears to me that some have not really read the Pyro piece.

For example note this portion:

Anything that aligns a pastor with the reception of individual, private revelation (and at such a critical juncture) is a disjunction from his actual “call,” which is to strive to embody certain objective standards (1 Tim. 3:1ff.; Titus 1:6ff.), to “preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:2), and to propound a publicly-accessible revelation (Titus 1:9, etc.). As seen in the story above, the semi-revelatory, individualistic, traditional “call” model can expressly divorce the preacher’s office and duties from the control of Scripture.

What I’m getting at is that there are multiple ideas of what “the call” to be a pastor is. Phillips is reacting to one very popular conception of the call… He is certainly not arguing against the view that God “gives” leaders to the church and these meet qualifications.

Nor is he rejecting the idea of vocation in general.

But there is a very popular view of “the call” that is quite distinct from either a) the traditional idea of vocation or b) the process of identifying given leaders by looking at qualifications. It’s this view that is his target.

(It’s also interesting how much some love the “show me chapter and verse” approach when something they want to reject is in question yet how quickly they want to call for a more complicated—and unclear—method when their sympathies lie with defending what’s being questioned.)

[Don Johnson]

Minnick goes on to argue that though there are many varied ways in which men become aware of the ‘call’, ‘leading’, what have you, there are Scriptural guidelines for other Christians to recognize the call or gift in men who become pastors:

1. He Gives Those Whose Testimony is Blameless
2. He Gives Those Whom His Spirit Has Spiritually Gifted
3. God’s People Recognize Those Whom Christ Gives
4. He Gives Those Who Earnestly Desire this Office

[…] Here is his conclusion, although I am not sure I agree with him 100% on each point he makes:

In the end, we can be sure of this: it is not God’s way to set men on a bleak course of futile searching to discover whether or not they are called. He Himself, and He alone, takes to Himself the entire responsibility for calling men into ministry. They do not call themselves. He calls them. When He does it, He does it convincingly. We may leave the entire matter confidently with Him.

Responding to the summary of Minnick as given by Don:

The 4-point list is great…so long as it’s couched as a list of scriptural principles that we prayerfully apply with discernment. These are objective criteria, even the ones that are objective observations of a subjective desire (e.g., it is an objective fact whether I do or do not have a desire, and per 1 Timothy the presence or absence of a desire is one criterion to consider).

If the 4-point list becomes some kind of divine tea-leave configuration through which we can hear the voice of God, then there’s a problem. I’m not sure what to think of the line, “He does it convincingly…” I would like to think that those 4 factors are persuasive in discernment at least most of the time. But I wouldn’t want to give young people the impression that they’re going to feel some kind of 100% infallible certainty. Imagine a man looking for that kind of certainty during wedding-day nerves (applying the will-of-God question to another big decision).

One other thought to bring to this discussion, esp. regarding God “giving”: the mechanism by which God appoints different officers seems to be different in the NT. Note that when the church approached the question of a replacement apostle, they prayed and cast a lot, as if to say, “We can’t choose; only Jesus can appoint an apostle; we’ll have to let Him sovereignly control the lot.” But they didn’t do that for deacons in Acts 6.

Personally, I don’t think a convincing call is necessary. I think it is possible, but not a requirement. If someone meets the objective tests Minnick lists, but is not convinced of a call, I don’t think it matters. Some people who are qualified excuse their failure to move forward because they have no convincing call. But… it is not like we have a glut of qualified ministers out there…

However, though I might not go so far as bro Minnick with respect to the call, I do think there is something more than just a “want to” in going into the ministry. There is an urgency that is derived from something other than self. However, I am very cautious about how far I go discussing this because I am very leery of mysticism.

Michael, your observations about Acts - apostle vs deacons - touch on an interesting part of Scripture that has to be weighed in the whole topic.