Steve Blakemore is the Professor of Philosophy at Wesley Biblical Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, as well as the newly appointed pastor of Wesley Chapel. Here are the highlights of his interview on The Matt Friedeman Show. Talk to us a little bit about new pastorates.
The thing that can be best done for the church is for the pastor to refuse to think about himself like Moses, coming in to lead the people of Israel.
People often get excited about a new pastor because they think there will be a new source of vision for the church.
It's not for the pastor to be the source of vision for the congregation.
On the day of Pentecost, Peter said what happened was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel.
What the Pastor needs to see himself doing is to help his congregation to hear the voice of God.
Is God sending these natural disasters that have been hitting the U.S.?
I think something like this happens in our minds because we forget how much suffering and natural disasters have happened in the history of the world.
In medieval Europe, many people were convinced that the Black Death, the Bubonic Plague, was the sign of the end times.
While I don't want to minimize at all that Jesus is coming back, I do want to emphasize that we can make too much of the "signs and wonders" that we see.
And often when we do that, we forget to respond with prayer and compassion to the results of the natural disasters.
Ultimately, we should be thinking what should our response be, as the hands and feet of Christ.
We often don't realize that we are in as much of a moral disaster as Katrina was physically and economically. Instead of seeing it as a sign of decay, we should be seeing the huge moral vacuum that we can help to fill.
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