Getting Authority and Care Right - Peter Orr on Today’s Pastor

‘Authority’ and ‘care’-  the two big words New Testament lecturer Peter Orr says belong together at the heart of real shepherding. 

Lecturer at Sydney’s Moore Theological College, Peter Orr, has told the Nexus Conference, that one of the great confusions of our moment is confusion about the role of the pastor. 

He asks whether in circles like ours, with a strong and right emphasis on every-member ministry, we accidentally downplayed the distinctiveness of the pastor? 

What does it mean to say that a pastor has real authority, but that it is derived, limited and for care? How to avoid harshness, being too soft and lazy. 

See also 

• ‘Fight for your pastor’ by Peter Orr 
• The War Zone of The Pastor’s Heart with Peter Orr 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Authority and care. They're two key words that Peter Rohr has used to describe real shepherding or the pastor's role, and yet that's not how we instinctively think. We tend to suspect authority and sentimentalize care, or we treat firmness and gentleness as opposites. But Peter Rohr says they belong together. It is the pastor's heart and the core issue today, confusion about the role of the pastor in today's world. What is the beating heart of the shepherd's role in a time when some pastors have exercised authority harshly, while others, perhaps reacting against that, have become so hesitant to lead that they no longer really shepherd at all? Peter Raw lectures in New Testament at Sydney's Moore Theological College. He's the author of Fight for Your Pastor, and he was the main presenter at Sydney's significant Nexus Ministry Conference just a couple of weeks ago. Peter Rohr, thanks for coming in. And let's start with your heart. I was going to say, let's start with your pastor's heart, but do you see yourself as a pastor? What's the difference between you and a pastor and the congregation and a pastor?

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Yeah, thanks, Dominic. Uh, good question. I work at Moore College. I train pastors. So I have a heart for pastors. I mean, we train lots of other people, um, missionaries, uh, people who go on to do student ministry, but we also train people who will become uh senior ministers. So my heart is for them. I think the work that I do has a pastoral dimension to it. Uh we uh, you know, all of us as faculty, we seek to care uh for the students that the Lord has brought to us. But I wouldn't see myself as a pastor. But I'm very concerned that uh pastors are kind of trained well and supported uh after they leave college.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

And there is confusion about the role of the pastor today, and some of it has come from the right concern about every member ministry.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Aaron Powell Yeah, I think we have probably in the last 50 years rightly re-emphasized every member ministry that um, you know, church is not meant to be just the pastor doing the ministry. I think we're we're all you know, we're members of the body, we all serve together, we all speak the truth in love to one another. But perhaps in rightly kind of recapturing the focus on that, we've inadvertently neglected to think clearly about the role of the pastor. And so um in some circles we could be a little bit fuzzy, fuzzy on that.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

And perhaps we've reacted against, if you like, clericalism in Roman Catholicism and stuff like that. And I've heard evangelicals say the difference between me the pastor and you the member is quantitative. But you're actually saying something different to that.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

No, I think it is quantitative.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

And you know, there are 60 hours, 50 hours of ministry a week, and you can only do 10 because you're um in the congregation. You've actually got to go to work.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

I mean that that's that's true, but I think there's more to it. I think the New Testament sees uh the role of the pastor, or we might say the elder or the overseer, as qualitatively different as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

How I think um the the the kind of words that you opened with, authority and care. I think the you know the pastor has uh a right, and we might talk about this, a right authority with respect to the congregation that um you know I as a congregation member don't, and has a responsibility to care for the congregation. No, I want to I want and I should care for my brothers and sisters, but not in the same way that a pastor did.

Shepherding In The Old Testament

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Now, you helped me the other week at this Nexus conference to to think through authority and care, not just from the New Testament epistles, but from a number of passages in the Old Testament. Can you just take us on a journey there?

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Yeah, so if we think of the pastor or the shepherd metaphor in the Old Testament, um, you know, as we trace it through the Old Testament, these two dimensions of authority and care are consistently used when the shepherd metaphor of leadership is employed. So right at the beginning, Numbers 27, um, with Moses' death uh or impending death, Joshua is um kind of appointed to lead the people so that uh, and uh the the text says so that they might not be a sheep without a shepherd. And what is Joshua to do? Well, he is to go out before before them to lead the people. So there's that that sense of kind of caring for them, protecting them, but also so that they uh might obey him. So there you have kind of care and authority that carries through. Perhaps the most famous passage about shepherding is Psalm 23. And you know, the psalm, the shepherd in Psalm 23 has a rod and a staff. And we maybe think, okay, well, those are just kind of synonyms, but the rod was uh the the weapon, it was to protect um the sheep. So there's that sense of authority to protect. But also the rod was used for counting the sheep to sort of, if we like, make sure that they are all there. Um so it's it's an expression of the the shepherd's leadership over the sheep. Um and then the staff was to to guide and to make sure that the um yeah, the sheep were kind of walking in the right paths, that the the paths of righteousness is the passage says.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Now, when I say that to an English congregation, um I think their eyes glaze over, do you know? Yeah. But you're actually confident of that in terms of the Hebrew words or the backstory.

Authority That Is Derived And Limited

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Yeah, and the rod, you know, um Psalm 2, which is picked up in Revelation 2, is Christ is the shepherd, you know, the rod is the weapon. Um, so that you know, that that's a kind of quite quite a graphic and I think helpful way of of encapsulating those two ideas. But but throughout uh the Old Testament, Isaiah 40, God as shepherd carries those who have young. So there's a it's a it's a real sense of kind of tenderness. Um but you know, the shepherd uh in Ezekiel 34, God as shepherd again will will kind of lead his people. So it's it's a it's it's a kind of picture of authority. So those two dimensions, authority and care in the Old Testament, and then they carry through into the New Testament.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

I'm gonna push more into authority in a moment, but um uh one of the lines you used is pastoral authority is derived and limited. Can you just kind of yes?

SPEAKER_00 7:47

So if we think of Ezekiel 34, um that's the kind of great passage in the prophets where the shepherds, the leaders of Israel, are criticized for the way that they uh lead uh or fail to lead God's people. And one of the things they do is they they are profiting from the sheep. And when you think about it, well, isn't a shepherd, isn't the whole point of being a shepherd that you have a flock and you're you're meant to economically benefit from it. But if you are not the owner of the sheep, then that that is not what you should be doing. And so the behind that critique is the fact that um the shepherds in Ezekiel 34 think that they own the sheep. And that is the problem. That's where um pastoral authority goes wrong, is when the pastor thinks he owns the sheep. God owns the sheep, and the pastor in in Peter's language in 1 Peter 5 is an under-shepherd. Um, it is not that we um, if we're a pastor, own the sheep, God owns the sheep, and so that's when authority uh yeah gets distorted.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

I've I've got a line swirling around in my head from a couple of weeks ago of um the pastors to rebuke not when his will is crossed, but when God's word is crossed.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Can you so you know the the the perhaps in in um you know in pastoral ministry the the sharpest exercise of authority is when you have to rebuke, and uh Paul and Titus can can use the language of rebuke sharply. But that is uh not when people aren't doing what you want them to do. It's when people aren't acting in line with God's word. So again, it's a derived authority. Your authority is to help people walk in paths of righteousness, Psalm 23, in in in line with what God wants them to do, not in line with what your program is so that you can kind of have a successful ministry.

unknown 10:11

Yeah.

Harsh Soft And Lazy Pastors

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Now you used words of harsh pastor, soft pastor, and lazy pastor. Yeah. Let's kind of push into each of those. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Yeah. So if you if you think of authority and care as the two dimensions, uh, you know, that that can go wrong. So you can have high authority and you know, little or no care. And that's the kind of harsh pastor, the domineering pastor. Uh so Ezekiel 34, you know, you ruled with harshness. And again, I think that is um uh the the pastor who's forgotten that he doesn't own uh he doesn't own the flock. So again.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

And I mean, just thinking there, I mean, they're the ones we hear about, you know, and that there are kind of complaints and pushbacks about. And yeah. Um what do you think is going on there?

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Yeah, it's interesting. I think that language of domineering in uh 1 Peter 5 is the same word that Jesus uses when he says the Gentile lord it over uh over them. So it's in a sense applying unhelpful kind of secular models of leadership in a in a pastoral setting and thinking of pastoral authority in the way that a CEO might think of their authority rather than the shepherd who is under God seeking to use his authority to care for the flock. Um, it's also interesting that One Peter is the letter in the New Testament that perhaps most matches our situation in that the opposition in One Peter is the opposition of insults and kind of pushback, if you if I can use that language, rather than the really kind of brutal persecutions that might have happened at other times. And so it's it's sort of like our own society where you you know you're opposed, you're insulted. And so the temptation for the pastor might be, well, I can't control uh everything around me, but I can control my congregation. So perhaps that's what's going on uh in one Peter, and that might be an explanation. In in a in a world of chaos, what can you control? Or what can you what do you think you can control? You think you can control the congregation, but that's a that is a wrong kind of application of pastoral.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

To be control the congregation or control the staff team.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Yeah, exactly. And that that's not kind of biblical authority for the pastor.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

We'll go to the opposite end and soft pastor.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Yeah, so there would be the opposite, where you've got kind of low authority or no authority and high care. And again, motivated out of uh a kind of desire to care for the flock, but perhaps what it gets distorted when it's um simply a desire to meet the perceived needs of the flock. And so you react to what they want. And you know, there might be lots of motivations for doing that, but you're not acting again as the shepherd under God, seeking to lead the flock in God's will, in paths of righteousness. You're simply um yeah, reacting to what they want. You you might um, you know, react to the to the wider world and sort of set the direction of your pastoral ministry to not kind of conflict with kind of cultural norms. And so what happens there is that because in our in our culture authority is is kind of um questioned and even opposed, that that's the thing that that slips. And so there's no place for rebuke um or kind of correction. It's it's a very soft ministry.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

If I go for those two poles, the harsh poll and the soft poll, I'm kind of imagining that I mean uh I mean there's obviously something in the middle, you know, and there's something in the middle. I don't know if I don't even want to say the middle, but um, that's not really the way to say it.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

No, and and when I was doing the talk, I I I also looked at um the other problem, which is uh kind of when both are loath, so low authority, low care, and that's uh a what we might call a a lazy pastor and uh a pastor who might be just doing it for uh kind of financial remuneration, you know, certain contexts in the world where being a pastor is still a sort of kind of a career, and you you might be able to do it in a way that um yeah, you can you can live a comfortable life.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Well, you got to the point in pastoral ministry, maybe you started out with the right intentions, but now you're kind of, I don't know what else I'd do.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Yeah, absolutely. And um, or or the other dimension of that, which I I thought about is um, you know, if you think of a father who's uh a workaholic, that father is not lazy, not at all. He's not a lazy person, but he might be a lazy father because his work, his his workaholism means he neglects his family. And you can maybe see a parallel where a pastor might be busy doing lots of other things, kind of pastoral adjacent things, and maybe some important things, but but that leads him to neglect his flock. And so he's not a lazy person, but he's a lazy pastor. And I should say, I mean, those are kind of these three ways of analyzing where you know the pastoral ministry can go wrong. Um that's I think they're they're they're in scripture, um and there they are kind of tendencies that that pastors need to watch against. The ideal pastor, I guess it's it's not so much high authority, high care. It's it's you know, it's Christ. Christ is the ideal pastor, so he is the model, and he has got the kind of the perfect balance of authority and care, and he he is the one that we um model ourselves on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

I was just thinking about um other ways of going wrong, that it might not be that I'm, if you like, harsh, overbearing, and domineering, but I'm getting my way by being manipulative and Machiavellian.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Yeah, no, absolutely. That's that's very helpful. Um and uh again, that is a what what what that is again is the same misunderstanding that this is my flock and and my so my will be done rather than you know God's will be done. Um and constantly the you know the pastor has to constantly keep bringing himself and his ministry back to God's word.

Healthy Authority Versus Bullying

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Why is softness often misread as love? Yes, I think or love perceived as softness, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

I think again, because we we have a we struggle with authority in our culture for different reasons. There have been abuse of authority, uh and um we are speaking in an Australian context. As an outsider, I would say that um you know Australia has so many strengths. And it's just that it's interesting for me that it, you know, authority in Australia is a complex thing, the relationship of Australians to authority. I think it is an egalitarian culture, and so um there is maybe a um a struggle to kind of appropriately understand uh authority. I'm not saying that, you know, uh, you know, culture I come from Northern Ireland, we we have lots of weaknesses I could talk about, but you know, maybe that's a weakness in Australian culture, that kind of um understanding of authority.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

I mean, I've noticed it in um uh in the GAFCON world um of wider Anglicanism, that uh uh as an Australian, um I will think uh very flat as my defaults. Yeah. Um whereas there are much clearer leadership lines in some of the other cultures that I've encountered there.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Yeah, and and that can then perhaps start to to kind of go too far into other problems.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Yeah. What's the difference between healthy pastoral authority and bullying?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Healthy pastoral authority is driven by a desire that the people in your congregation, again, walk in paths of righteousness, that they um are obeying God, uh, that they're cared for, that they're growing. And so there is the place for the, you know, the encouragement, the the rebuke. But even that has to be done in gentleness, Paul says. You know, those who oppose you he's to you know to gently rebuke. Uh so that's health, healthy authority. It's it's for the sake of the other. It is it is always for the sake of the other, uh, as opposed to authority that is used to kind of um you know establish one's own um place or or or kind of uh build one's ministry and one's kind of sense of self-worth through the ministry. I mean, there are lots of reasons that um that that can be used in a wrong way.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

I mean, our program is mainly for senior pastors, but there's assistant ministers and uh church members listening in. Yeah. How can they tell if a senior pastor's firmness is Christ-shaped or controlling?

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Aaron Powell Yeah, I mean, that's tricky and and um uh complex. And I I don't want to sort of give a simplistic answer, but I think you know there are there are warning signals, and if it's something that you know multiple people are noticing, um I think you know that that's when that's when you start to sort of think, okay, there's something there's something problematic here.

Preaching As The Pastoral Priority

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Yeah. Um is pastoral authority uh exercised only in preaching or also in kind of governance staffing church direction? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Yeah. I I think uh I think it both. I think it it it is and it should be in in preaching. And so preaching should have a dimension that can sometimes feel a little bit uncomfortable as the word of God is, you know, the the word of God um comes to us with the the authority of God, and so the preacher needs to kind of communicate that. Um and so preaching should make us uncomfortable, like not necessarily all the time, but it it should occasionally. But I I think you're right in terms of the governance of a church, and it, you know, we we could get into questions that I'm not qualified to answer about ecclesiology, like different ecclesiastical structures and and what so what that will look like, what pastoral authority will look like will look different in particular um ecclesiastical structures.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

And you've talked about preaching having authority, yeah. And um you caused a little bit of um, I don't know, ruckus um about um what that might look like in a minister's diary day to day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Yeah. So I think um, you know, I think preaching is is very important. And so I deliberately kind of overstated that a little bit in a quote from uh a very helpful book, uh if kind of listeners want to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So John Curry, you know, the uh um leading by pastoring. I sorry, I can't remember the exact uh leading by preaching, um, but it's by John Curry. He says that the majority of the pastor's time should be taken up in um kind of preparing um to preach. And now that might be a bit of an overstatement, but I think it's a good correction in in some contexts where preaching has sort of just become so peripheral to the to the pastor's um time. Uh I think it's a good correction and a good reminder that uh you know the the the people of God assemble to hear the word, the word of God, it it it is a significant thing. And so that should be reflected in in the pastor's preparation. I I think you know that's that's the that's the example in the history of the church. Um that's an example in uh majority of kind of church contexts around the world, even if I think probably the the quote I used was a little bit overstated.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

So I mean majority is the key, the problem. I mean that's the debated word. I mean majority sounds like more than 50 percent. Exactly. Exactly. I would have thought in the room the other week, very few senior pastors would actually be spending more than 50 percent of their time in the study. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Yeah, and and this is where, and you know, in a couple of places I acknowledged uh, you know, I'm I'm a lecturer at Moore College, and you know, I wrote I wrote these talks sitting at my desk in my air conditioned office, and I and I know that you know the pastoral ministry, as I mean, I know firsthand from friends and uh colleagues who are in pastoral ministry is is very demanding. And um, you know, for all the will in the world, you know, it's it is it it can be very hard to find that time. Let's play with the idea though.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Um I'm thinking no one in I'm thinking in the ministry around me is pushing me to spend more time at my desk.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Um everyone is saying, uh well, maybe somebody would say the cr the talks aren't good enough, you need to spend more time. Do you know? But um but most people are saying, can you help me here? Do you know or here is I mean I think people would look at me and think, oh Dominic's very busy, but I wish he'd spend more time on this topic. Only this topic is different for every single person.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Yeah. I I think and I think again, um, yeah, the the the work of preaching the word is is central to the work of the pastor. It's not the only thing, it has to be the priority. And I, you know, we at the conference we looked at um 1 Timothy 3 and 4, and you know, Paul's command to Timothy to preach the word and the importance that he gave that. And so that's got to be reflected in in the pastor's diary, acknowledging that uh it will look different for different pastors.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

It has got more complex, I think, or more difficult, I think, in the last um uh well, I've been doing it for 25 years now. Um I I feel like there's been there's a much bigger push on compliance and governance and all those kind of things. I mean, uh not just from the secular authorities in terms of but also from the denomination. Um and uh all these things are saying the kingdom will fall if you don't do this, and the kingdom will fall if you don't do that. You know, yeah. And yet actually the kingdom falls if I'm not preaching prayerfully preaching the word of God.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

I think that's right. And again, uh, you know, as I said here, it's very easy for me to speak on these things. I I know the pressure that pastors feel. And perhaps this is where as a congregation member, I and other congregation members need to step up and say, look, some of this important, vital compliance stuff. You know, maybe we we can do that, or we can help you do that uh to free up your time to spend in uh prayer and the word.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

I mean, I wrote back to our denominational office the other day when they told me I had to do this urgent thing. And I said, if you want this thing done, you'll need to write to my administrator. They wrote back saying, no, you need to do it. Yeah. And I said, I'm not gonna do it.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it it is it is hard. It's it's it's complex. We do live in a complex world, and because of you know, past failures, we we live downstream of that, and it's very important. I I realize that. And and maybe this is something that we have to kind of address, you know, as as congregations, as denominations, so that these things need to get done. But perhaps the senior minister isn't the one who needs to kind of be taking the each of those things.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

We've got to be able to delegate some of those things because you can't delegate the how frequently should the senior minister preach?

SPEAKER_00 25:57

How long is a piece of string? Um, yeah. I again, I I think senior minister in leading the congregation, I I presume wants to be doing the lion's share of the preaching. But um, yeah, that what again, what that looks like will be different depending on how many services you have, you know, your your your model of congregational leadership. Um I spoke at the conference about the what what I've noticed again, a difference between the UK and Australia is in the UK you tend to have more churches where you would have um people going to church twice, morning and evening, hearing two sermons.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

So for Do you is that the case at the moment, or is that 20 years ago?

SPEAKER_00 26:41

I think that's still the case at the moment. Um in in a lot of contexts, yeah. There's still uh this um there'd be a lot of places in the UK um where you would have two uh as I as I understand it, um, where you would have uh a different sermon morning and evening. Um so two different opportunities for people to sit sit under the word of God. Again, that that kind of increases the time that the the pastor needs to be it's interesting to reflect on how the internet has changed these things.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Um I'm I'm just thinking in my own context now. Um I'm preaching three times a Sunday and giving the same talk three times a Sunday. And I often think, oh, which one was the best? Oh, it's that one. We'll put that one online. Yeah, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Yeah, yeah. No, that is um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Um I thought the rapport was best, I thought the engagement was whatever it was, do you know?

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Yeah, no, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Yeah. Um uh and I mean there is a sense that we're all being I mean, this might be the wrong way to think, and tell me, but there's a sense that you put your talks up online, your people are listening, assessing, deciding on whether or not they come to your church based on what they most people have checked things out online first in some way or another.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Yeah, I mean that is that is the way of the the way of the world. But I guess once people are at your church and and you know you're responsible for them as your pastor, you want to be feeding them. And you know, Paul talks in uh 1 Timothy 4, you know, he says, preach the word uh correct, rebuke, and encourage. And there's a sense in which it's hard to correct people or rebuke people if you don't know them. And so um, or or maybe, you know, I'm uh I it it it's easier to correct people if you know if you know them, you know where they're struggling in their thinking. It's easier to rebuke people when you know where they're struggling in their um or sinning in their you know in their lives. It's easier to encourage people where you know that you know they're the particular uh things that they're struggling with. So knowing your flock helps you to be a better preacher.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Yeah. I wasn't expecting to go here this afternoon, but um uh it's I mean the model of having people come to church twice, actually part of that is how many hours a week do you expect of your congregation members to participate in church things, you know? Yeah. And um I've kind of worked on the expectation that the the average engaged person in our church might give me 10, might give us 10 to 12 hours a week, do you know? Um I'm thinking three hours on Sunday morning, three hours on Wednesday night, one service ministry, rostered service ministry a week, and a lunchtime meetup with someone to encourage like a spontaneous them take initiative thing. That kind of adds up to 10, 11 hours. Yep. And I just don't know how I could expect more than that.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

And and to be clear, I was in a sense throwing out that idea of of preaching two sermons on a Sunday as at least something to to think about, as a as a different model. And um, you know, what what you're you're kind of suggesting there, or you're kind of explaining that sounds also like a good model. I guess the the I mean I'd like more time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

I guess um Because people will be more mature the more the more they're hearing the word of God.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

I mean, I think that's the thing that in a in a world where we are drowning in information and it's uh information that's not from the Bible to sit together under God's word together, you know, it it it can't hurt to be doing that more than more than we are. Yeah. But again, to to stress, I I part part of these conferences is to to kind of think and and push a little bit. So I'm certainly not saying um that you know, I'm not I'm not making a rallying call for kind of two sermons on a Sunday. Um I threw that out as a well, have a have a think about that. Is that a is that something that might help in your context uh help you as a pastor actually spend more time in the word, help your congregation? Is that what they uh what they need? But there are other ways of doing it. Um and um yeah, we we we just want people sitting under God's word.

The Hidden Risk Of Softness

SPEAKER_01 31:02

We get the pushback about the too authoritarian pastor. We don't get much of a pushback over the, if you like, the too soft pastor. Um how much of a danger do you think that is in our current contemporary context?

SPEAKER_00 31:17

Yeah, again, it's it's it's hard to be too specific, but I think I mean you're looking out at churches around.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

Yeah, I think one sign is um an unwillingness to be negative in preaching. So again, taking that model from 1 Timothy 4, uh preach the word, and then Paul says uh correct, rebuke, and encourage. So those are kind of two negatives, if you like. You know, correcting where people have gone wrong in their thinking, rebuking where people have gone wrong in their living, and then encourage is the kind of positive keep going. So that there is a negative dimension, and you you look at how much of the New Testament is negative in the sense of it's calling people back from uh from sin or from error. And I wonder in our preaching, if we if we don't do that, um, so when we look at a passage, we kind of think, okay, the way that this is misunderstood in our wider world or in our Christian context is this. So we need to guard against this error. Uh, you know, this passage highlights a particular sin. We need to think about this. And um yeah, so that lack of kind of what we might call negative. I mean, it's not negative. Negative makes it sound bad, but it's it's negative in the sense of it's the correction. Correction.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just as you say that, I'm thinking uh uh a few years ago when we saw um some congregations had a really bumpy ride through the uh plebiscite. Yeah. And um and I'm I'll just put this out there. Um I wondered whether that was because in those particular congregations there hadn't been clarity on sexuality in in the preaching in the lead up to it. Yeah. Uh whereas I think the churches where there'd been real clarity beforehand, um uh they rode through that choppy waters much more smoothly.

Final Reflections And Farewell

SPEAKER_00 33:18

Yeah, that that definitely makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

Thanks so much for coming in. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

Peter Orr has been our guest. He's a lecturer in New Testament at Sydney's Moore Theological College and was the main presenter at the Nexus Conference, the Nexus Ministers Conference, uh here in Sydney just a few weeks ago. My name's Dominic Steele. You've been with us on the Pastor's Heart, and we will look forward to your company next Tuesday afternoon.