0602 SPIRITUAL CREDENTIALS

SPIRITUAL CREDENTIALS

How do you know if you are qualified as a minister of the gospel? What would you put on your resume? How would a particular congregation come to know that you are capable of handling the word of God and prepared for the responsibilities and privileges of the office of Pastor or Minister?

In our culture, the credential is easy to recognize. It includes a degree. The industry standard is an MDiv, which is typically 3 years of full time study after completing a liberal arts degree in college. A college degree traditionally involves a total of 120 academic hours of study. The MDiv requires 90 additional credit hours plus field experience. If you really want to gain professional trust, a DMin would be the professional standard. A DMin would historically require about 60 extra hours after the MDiv. 

We would also expect that the education for a degree in ministry would also include an internship, or supervised field experience. In short, earning a DMin is pretty much the equivalent experience and academic hours for a medical doctor. 

Another important part of preparing for ministry would be receiving ordination. The elders who know you best come and lay hands on you. Now you’re ready to go! Ministry, here I come! 

But Paul likely would not have gone through such steps. He tells the Corinthian believers that his credential is not on paper at all. 

So today, how would we go about hiring someone who was qualified for the office of minister? I think Paul would say, ask about the person’s converts, and who has been discipled and brought to maturity because of that person’s influence.

I’m saying that all of the academic rigors and practical experience are good. But they are simply not as necessary as seeing the fruit from a life.

In Paul’s day, a person would bring a letter, signed by the proper person of authority, commending them. It was similar to our diplomas that would be displayed on a wall. As a Pharisee, Paul would have received a letter from his teacher Gamaliel introducing him and giving whoever might read the letter his credentials. In more recent times, your ministerial credentials are found in the letters that come after your name. And the signature verifying it would be the name of the school that issued it. But Paul says that the letter is best written not so much by your spiritual father, but by your spiritual children, and the children who come from them, and so forth.

Paul would say, what is the fruit that has come from your life? Or he might say, “What does your letter say? That letter that you carry with you everywhere you go? And who signed that letter?” He says,

“You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 

So Paul would say that any letter he might carry from his mentor Gamaliel which gave his academic credentials were life-shaping, but meaningless. Paul would say that any degree he had earned is meaningless, having been a chasing after wind. He would say that 

So I’ll ask you, young adult, what does your letter say? Who wrote it and signed it?

Husband or wife, what does your letter say? Who wrote it and signed it?

Father or mother, what does your letter say? Who wrote it and signed it?

Or to put it a different way, when your life is over and you come to stand before the judgment seat, who will be there to vouch for you and say, “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for this person.” 

Slightly different again. Who will be there to greet you and thank you and say, “I watched your life closely and modeled myself after what I saw.” Or “I heard about you from one of your spiritual children. They said so many things that they had learned from you.”

May God grant to you a spiritual credential in those you have affected for the Lord. And may He bring about your spiritual legacy, showing what a difference you have made. Amen.