Short and To The Point

 

I am at the point in my calling as a pastor when the end of my calling is much closer than the beginning. This isn’t to say I’m planning to retire soon but merely a recognition that at age 65 the number of years that, at this point, I see myself continuing to pastor a church can likely be counted on one hand.

One consequence of that truth is that I am not really trying to actively build my personal library anymore. I was talking about this with my mom this afternoon and mentioned to her I have a list of five books that I was hoping would be published soon and added to my library. Given what I already have, both read and unread, I plan to think long and hard before acquiring something outside of that list. I get many emails of this and that new book that are marketed as being “essential” for the pastor but the simple truth is that a publisher’s idea of essential and mine are quite different. 

Among those five books is a three-volume work in ethics, which is being translated from Dutch. Volume one came out a few years ago and volume two came out perhaps a year ago. When volume three comes out I can buy the whole thing at a discount and be in business. They were written about a 100 years ago by a pastor and professor whose other works have been a great blessing to me, both as a Christian and a pastor. I anticipate a similar blessing in reading his writing on the discipline of ethics. 

Ethics. Here is my off-the-cuff definition: The ways in which Christians live in their day-to-day lives that are pleasing to God. Francis Shaeffer wrote an excellent book titled How Then Should We Live? Ethics answers that always relevant question.

All I have written so far in this post serves as an introduction to something Robin and I read tonight, from Deuteronomy 19:9, which includes this phrase:

“…by loving the Lord your God and by walking ever in His ways…”

That is ethics in a nutshell. The person, the era, the situation may vary, be it any biblical person, such as Adam, Eve, Noah, Moses, Saul, David, Jonah, Paul, or Peter, or any non-biblical person and their circumstances and place in history, such as Polycarp, Augustine, Tyndale, Spurgeon or Jim Elliot. No matter the person or situation the fundamental principle to guide life is the same. Love the Lord and walk in His ways. Short and to the point.

I have no doubts that the three-volumes, translated from Dutch to English, will be very, very good. But I am also quite certain that the principle that will underlie the entire work will be the idea that Moses gives in Deuteronomy, a principle repeated in other words and in other places in the Bible. Love the Lord your God and walk in His ways. May that be the principle that sticks in my head and guides me for however many more days the Lord grants to my life, and may that principle guide you as well. Amen. 

 

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.