Christian Ministry

But when some of the Jews saw the crowds, they were jealous; so they slandered Paul and argued against whatever he said. [Acts 13.45]

Jealousy and envy are blinding. No matter what Paul said, their only concern was that he was getting all the attention.

I know we would like to think this does not occur today, but it does.

Christian ministry is a funny thing. Effective ministry of God's Word brings results (as God said it would). True conviction is contagious. God invested no small amount of power in His Word. However, effective and successful ministry of God's Word draws attention. Oftentimes that attention becomes diverted to a human. And it is here we see a problem...

When man gets attention, one or two things can easily happen. One thing is that people exalt a human and a Pandora's Box of nasty consequences lie in wait. Those who exalt, as well as the one exalted, deal with misplaced exaltation that leads to disastrous pride and idolatry. The end result can usually be defined as disastrous.

Another problem associated with a human getting widespread attention is jealousy by others who think they deserve the attention instead. A jealous person (or group) will resort to incredibly low means to discredit the one(s) they are jealous of. Thus we hear blanket criticism of mega-churches and televangelists by those with no actual experience with them.

We see both these scenarios in Christian ministry today. Chances are, every single person ever involved with Christian ministry (giver or receiver) has experienced some degree of this problem of jealousy or idolatry.

Why this discussion about Christian ministry today? Because we all need to be aware of the dangers of pride and jealousy. We need to approach every ministry venue with keen eyes and ears always on alert for pride and jealousy.

I will ad here that, if every professing Christian did their duty (the Great Commission), the occasion for exaltation of a single human or group of humans would be diminished. The problem mentioned above occurs most usually when one person 'heeds the call' while others simply relax in observation as recipients. Jesus' model for evangelism is one-on-one more than anything else. Mega-churches, super evangelists, and the likes set the perfect stage for what Paul experienced in today's reading. That does not make them 'bad' per se, but we need to be aware of the dangers that lie in wait. If we could only see through these New Testament stories the problems that seemed to arise from large gatherings, we might re-think our strategy for evangelizing our families, our neighborhoods, our cities, and our world.

Father, help us to see the value and safety (from jealousy and pride) of one-on-one evangelism versus mass evangelism.