What to Expect from a Pastor

Message / Question Do you think we expect too much from our pastors? St Paul was a murderer, David was an adulterer and a murderer, Mary Magdalene was a prostitute....

Response:

Your question mentions Paul, David Mary – why does God choose people who make mistakes? I guess the answer is pretty simple ....there’s no alternative – you see we’re all the same. We all make mistakes, we all do things we wish we didn’t – Paul wrote that the things that he knew he shouldn’t do, he sometimes did and the things that he knew he should do, he sometimes didn’t. Yep, we’re all human.

Whilst it’s true that Paul was a murderer, David an adulterer and Mary a prostitute, we need to remember Paul’s word to the Corinthian church – he pointed out that thieves, murderers etc would not inherit the Kingdom and reminded them that they had been guilty of the very same things BUT in Christ, the past was removed from their record and they were now just, holy and righteous before God.

So what should we expect of our pastors? Does the fact that they are now just, holy and righteous before God make them infallible super heroes? The Bible does say that our pastors should set an example in their way of life, should be blameless in personal conduct and have a good testimony from those who are outside the church. So that’s a reasonable expectation. Beyond that, we should be careful that we don’t set our pastors on some sort of pedestal where they are expected to be perfect in every way. They are our leaders in our church life, but they are still fallible human beings, not some super breed of Christian that God has especially endowed to get everything right all the time. Let’s be reasonable with our expectations and remember our own human weaknesses and remind ourselves that our pastors are no more nor less human than any one of us.