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--- topical_call_to_ministry [2020/04/25 12:17] – [It's About Teleology] gregkedro
+++ topical_call_to_ministry [2020/04/25 13:03] (current) – [References] gregkedro
@@ Line 48: / Line 48: @@
 However, Dr. Ruckman did say in that same context that this "God-called preacher" was assigned a lifelong job... two things that God expected him to do for the rest of his life:
-  - Study and search every branch of knowledge, relgion, history, and news event to find THE TRUTH in it, according to one standard: the Holy Bible; and
+  - Study and search every branch of knowledge, religion, history, and news event to find THE TRUTH in it, according to one standard: the Holy Bible; and
   - Proclaim those truths (or that truth) any way that he can as long as he lives.
 **Quote:** "He is to be obsessed with learning and teaching" (teaching what is TRUE and what is NOT TRUE). Any other occupation is a "hobby" or a "necessity," not his "calling."
+  * Even thought I disagree with the notion of an extra-biblical, personal "call to ministry," I really like what he has to say about what God expects of a preacher.
 ----
@@ Line 205: / Line 206: @@
   * This is a question of teleology: "What has God designed me to do?"
-Instead of all this "Christian divination" (the mystical seeking of personal divine relelatory guidance), we should be focusing on design.
+Instead of all this "Christian divination" (the mystical seeking of personal divine revelatory guidance), we should be focusing on design.
   * God's "divine design" in a Christian will provide all the guidance necessary for that Christian to "find" and do the work God designed him to do.
   * If you're a hammer, drive nails. If you're not... then what kind of [[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Timothy+2:19-21&version=KJV|tool]] are you (because, at the end of the day... we're all pretty much [[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Tool|tools]], [[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians+1:25-27&version=KJV|right]]?)?
-God has made each and every one of us in Christ "unto good works"--He has designed us for the works He wants us to do. **//And//** He has ordained those works that we should walk in them.
+Ephesians 2.10 says God has made each and every one of us in Christ "unto good works"--He has designed us for the works He wants us to do. **//And//** He has ordained those works that we should walk in them.
   * That means we are made (created in Christ, divinely designed) for the works God wants us to do.
-  * That means the works God wants us to do are divinely ordained for us to do.
+  * That means the works God wants us to do are divinely ordained for us as individuals.
   * It's a perfect fit: we are designed for the works and the works are ordained for us.
   * The Christian who does the works he was designed to do will do those works as naturally as a hammer drives nails.
   * But the Christian who tries to do works for which God did not design him... will be like the guy who tries to drive nails with screwdriver. He might get one or two in... but he won't last long before he quits.
-It's about teleology (what is your divine design?), not about "calling" (a "subjective sense" of God's leading--oh gag me with a spoon!).
+It's about teleology (what is your divine design?), not about "calling" (a "[[topical_call_to_ministry#don_whitney|subjective sense]]" of God's leading--[[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gag%20me%20with%20a%20spoon|oh gag me with a spoon]]!).
 God created each and every one of us with a purpose in mind--works He designed us to do:
@@ Line 236: / Line 237: @@
 When we sit around wringing our hands, praying and fasting, and "seeking the calling of the Lord"... we're stupid.
   * Get up and get busy doing **//something//** to evangelize the lost and edify the saved.
-  * What comes natural? What do you like doing in the ministry? What is your "passion" (desire) in the ministry?
+  * What comes natural? What do you like doing in the ministry? What is your "passion" (desire) in the ministry? Go do that! Because we need the hands in the Body of Christ to do the work of the hands... and the feet to do the work of the feet... If you're a foot, don't try to do the work of a hand. Do what comes naturally to the foot! It ain't that hard...
+  * Remember the [[https://bible.kedrovsky.net/_media/10_topical_alpha/lrrp_integral_members_of_the_team.pdf|LRRPs]], folks.
 If you put a good hammer in your hands, you're gonna look for a nail... that's **//telology//**.
-  * Telology (God's divine design; what He designed us to do) should be the guiding force in our search for our ministry niche.
+  * Telology (God's divine design; what He designed us to do) should be the guiding principle in our search for our ministry niche.
   * And we'll never figure it out until we start driving nails... get busy in the ministry.
+----
+===== References =====
+**Dr. Peter S. Ruckman** wrote about this in his [[https://store.kjv1611.org/1-2-corinthians-commentary/|Commentary on 1Corinthians]] (p. 27-28). Pay attention as you read this quote how he mixes the idea of "calling" and teleology ("that for which the Lord has equipped you"). Doc was way smarter than I am... Way smarter... But, I disagree with the traditional Baptist myth of a "calling" as he mentions it in this quote. I think we would do better to stick with what he says about simply focusing on what you are **//equipped//** by God to do (teleology), because that will clearly define what God **//wants//** you to do.
+>I don't particularly appreciate my ministry. I really don't. If I had my way, I'd like to be a big time evangelist and run up and down the country and preach to a town and get people saved. I would like to be a Billy Graham or Jack Van Impe instead of a poor man's Oral Roberts. I don't particularly appreciate my ministry. I don't particularly appreciate God **//calling//** me to spend all my time hacking away at these Christian educators and slamming these revisers and going after these fellows and calling them "asses" and "blockheads" and "dumbheads" and "meatbrains" and all that. I never particularly enjoyed doing that. I would rather do something else. But you will have to do what the Lord **//calls//** you to do, and **//you will have to do that for which the Lord has equipped you.//** That is **//what the Lord equipped me for//**, and that is what I'm going to do. **//That's what I am supposed to do.//** A fellow said "Billy Sunday was God's joke on the ministry and Pete Ruckman was God's joke on Christian education." I appreciate that. If that's what I can do, I'll do it.
+>
+>**//You do what you can do and what you are equipped to do.//** Don't follow my example all the way unless the Lord wants you to. If he does, OK; if he doesn't, go some other way. Do what God wants you to do. **//In my background is all the equipment for what I am supposed to do.//** It is weird equipment. I mean, the Lord had to get somebody down low enough on the ground who would talk like common folks. So he put me in the infantry for four years. Then God had to get somebody that could handle the Hebrew and Greek. So I had to go to college for ten years. The Lord had to get somebody that would say it plain and blunt and clear. So he had to give me a background where I wasn't //raised//; I was "drug up." And **//all of that is equipment for what God intended me to do. In your life the same thing will be true.//** There will be some things in your life that won't be clear. But you keep on doing what God wants you to do the way God wants you to do it, and **//you will find __everything in your background__//** will begin to come in and work out for **//the particular job that God wants you to do.//** And it will be **//the right equipment//** and **//the right training//**.
+>
+>I have never known God to waste anything, any human life. We waste things, but the Lord doesn't.
+**Summary:** So, how do we know what the Lord wants us to do? By some mystical "subjective sense" that we think is a "calling"? No. Do what God equipped you to do.
+  * Look at your background--everything in your background (it's not an accident: Eph 2.10).
+  * God doesn't waste anything.
+  * Go do what God has //__equipped__// you to do because that is what He //__wants__// you to do.
+I wrote a [[https://discipuladobiblico.com/ministerio/|book]] on this.
+----