A higher standard?

Published 4:52 pm Tuesday, January 7, 2020

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By Charles Qualls

“Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.” With those words in James 3:1, a high bar is set for those who would represent the work and movement of God among humanity. Basically, I am talking about ministers because I think this writer and others like him were. By the end, though, I want to ask you a question.

We clergy types often reference “living in a fishbowl.” That is, we understand that we are under near constant scrutiny. In a social media age, even people who can’t observe us visually still see our words and what we may post or react to. If they disagree with us, or find even a hint of disagreeability in us, they love to remind us that we are “pastors.”

“Why, that’s not a good attitude coming from a pastor,” you might hear them say. “I would have expected more from a pastor;” others might respond if they don’t like an opinion, stance or action you have taken. Even our families are caught up in this image gazing. My wife is on display if she is outside our house, just like I am. Any belief, opinion or action she may take is assumed to be tantamount to my own. Fair or unfair.

Spouses at least choose to marry into it, I suppose, if the sacred call has arrived in life before the betrothal. But children are born into ministers’ families, with absolutely no measure of choice. Pastors’ kids can have a tough road to walk for life, especially early on.

Whether we truly want to be, or not, pastors seem to be held to a higher standard. The apostle Paul counseled similarly as in 2 Timothy 2:15. There he said, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.”

The obvious question I ponder occasionally is: Why? When I consider the totality of Jesus’ teachings, this question comes into play? When I listen to other things that James and the apostle Paul said to the general Christian audience, I wonder why. Why should pastors be held to any higher standard of integrity, dedication, friendliness or Christ-likeness than anyone else?

Oh, I get that not everyone aspires to that office, nor is called to serve in it. But once we get past that, we notice that there’s not really a “Pastor’s Bible” that is separate from the Bible you read. There’s not some secret higher ethic than Christ’s ethic. There is not a secret higher justice than the one that Jesus called us all to foster. There is not a truer true than that which our Lord instructed you to speak. So, what really is that extra gear we ministers are supposed to shift into just because of what we do? I can’t find a better goodness from Christ than the one you are also called to live.

Here is why James and Paul recommended as they did. If we want to be eligible, and certainly credible, as dispensers of God’s sacred word we have to keep it. I get it. We have to be as above reproach as humanly possible. Because that’s what people will expect. That, and we don’t want to be bad role models of course.

It’s just that some of the meanest people I have known have been Christians. In every congregation I have served, there are always one or two who are just downright mean-spirited and cantankerous. There are always rebels. There are those who believe they are straight-shooters, when everyone around them knows they are actually just brutal and blunt. Manipulators, liars, adulterers and thieves? I’ve had them all in my churches.

None of them, not one, have done the church’s reputation any good when they are bad. Certainly they can set back the cause of Christ, as we all can in our worst moments. Our good news is only as good as the people who carry it. Our witness is only as compelling as those who bear the name Christian. Let me ask you again: why? Why, really, should your pastor be held to any higher standard of being than yourself?

THE REV. DR. CHARLES QUALLS is senior pastor at Franklin Baptist Church. Contact him at 562-5135.