Remember Your Pastor-Teachers
Hebrews 13:7 says, “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.”
How to show philadelphia, brotherly love and kindness? “Remember them which have the rule over you”! Here it tells us to remember our leaders, especially those who preach and teach the Word of God, your pastors and preachers. It tells us to remember our past leaders, “Remember them …, considering the end of their conversation.” The word “end” can mean “purpose”. Here, the word “end” means “exit”. Remember their “exit”. It talks about their home-going. They have completed their time here on earth, they have fought the good fight, they have run the race and the Lord has called them home, “the end of their conversation”. “Conversation” here speaks of their conduct, their manner of life. So, remember your leaders, your pastors, your teachers, those who have fed you with God’s Word, who have taught you. Remember them for their faithful ministry of the Word till the end.
I thank God that we had a good pastor and teacher in our late founding pastor, the Rev Dr Timothy Tow. I was privileged to have been his student at FEBC and I must remember him. I remember him and all that he has taught me, his good doctrines and good example — “whose faith follow”. I thank God for the Reformed and premillennial faith I received from him. When I entered FEBC I was not Bible-Presbyterian. I was a dispensational, anti-paedobaptist Brethren. But I thank God that I was taught the good old faith by him. The biblical faith, the Reformed and premillennial faith, covenant theology, the unity of the Scriptures, the imminent return of Jesus Christ. This theology is so consistent, so beautiful and so glorifying to God. By and by, my eyes opened. I was one of those in class who challenged infant baptism. Rev Tow was very gentle with me. “Study some more” he said. I was just a novice student, I thought I knew, but actually I knew very little, hardly anything. Slowly as I began to study more and more and read more Reformed books on theology, searching the Scriptures, I began to understand why infant baptism is not Roman Catholic. It is biblical because our God is not just God of the individual, He is God of the family. It goes back to God’s covenant in the Old Testament, how the Lord wants to bless the family as a unit, and what baptism entails, what it means in covenant theology. Then my eyes opened. I thank God for Rev Tow’s very patient teaching of me. He showed brotherly love, philadelphia, in his teaching of the Scriptures, and I began more and more to see. I thank God for his wisdom, I thank God for his insights into theology and God’s Word. I thank God for the Reformed and premillennial faith. I pray you know your faith and how to express or articulate it when people ask you, “You are a Bible-Presbyterian — what do you believe?” I pray you’ll know how to explain your faith and give a reason for your faith.
So, “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the Word of God.” And if you know that what you believe is very good for you and not only for yourself but for others as well (because others may be seeking the truth, and they may be confused or lost, they don’t know what to think or believe), and if they come asking you a question, “Who is our God? What is our God? What is this all about?” you can explain to them. When they know the truth, they see and are set free. That is how you show your love to them. You release them from their blindness and bondage. “The things that thou hast heard of me, the same commit thou to faithful men who are able to teach others also.”
I thank God for Rev Tow not only for his wisdom in teaching good doctrine to me, I thank the Lord also for his humility. He is someone who can change. He is someone who can correct himself. When I studied Systematic Theology under him, when we dealt with creation and the days of Genesis, Rev Tow followed Buswell his teacher, and Buswell said that the days of Genesis were figurative days, not literal 24-hour days. Rev Tow held to that position. But he said, “I don’t believe that the days are eons (meaning long long periods of time, millions or billions of years), I reject that, because that would be the falsehood of evolution, the world is not that old, the universe is not that old. But I cannot say that they are literal 24-hour days. So, if you ask me what are the days — they are not man-days but God-days. Only God knows how long He took, but not millions and billions of years.”
But later on, when Dr John Whitcomb (one of the leaders of the Creationist movement) was invited from the States (Grace Theological Seminary) to teach in our midst, he expounded the Word very powerfully — Genesis 1 — how the days must be literal 24-hour days. Why? Because of the Hebrew word yom and the numerical adjective, first, second and third. Always, when the word yom or “day” is used with the numerical adjective in the Old Testament (first day … second day), it always means a 24-hour day. Also, the phrase “evening and morning” speaks of the 24-hour cycle. Also, the Sabbath commandment, six days you shall work and one day you rest. It is just like God saying, “I worked for six days in Creation and rested on the seventh, so you rest as well — pattern your work week after mine.” This must mean a week of 24-hour days. Rev Tow one day told me, “I have changed my view, I now believe in a literal 24-hour day Creation, each day is a literal 24-hour day”. He was someone who was so humble. Why? Because he was able to submit himself to the sole, supreme and final authority of the Scriptures. So, I have learned this from him.
We must “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the Word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.” And when we can remember in a good way — our leaders — then we will know how to show this kind of love — philadelphia. If I disagreed with my pastor and teacher, if I want to show philadelphia, brotherly kindness, I would not go about undermining his pastoral ministry. If I disagreed with him, I would say, “Thank you, I will leave and go to another church.” A church that I can agree with and serve there peacefully. I won’t be staying behind to try to undermine his ministry. That would not be a loving thing to do, and I would also not want to build upon another man’s foundation — to dismantle it and build upon it. Even in the matter of the Verbal Plenary Preservation (VPP) of the Scriptures, I thank the Lord that He opened my eyes and my heart to believe — and that is what God’s Word teaches — that the Bible is 100% infallible, inerrant, not only in the past but also today, by virtue of His special providence in keeping the Scriptures pure in all ages.
I thank the Lord again for Rev Tow’s humility, because when he was teaching Systematic Theology, he taught Verbal Plenary Inspiration (VPI) — the inspiration of God and the inerrancy in the autographs. No mention of the apographs — the Scriptures we have in our hands today. Well, the autographs we do not have today. But the inspiration and inerrancy, only in the autographs? There is this big blank space concerning the present Scriptures — what kind of Scriptures do we have in our hands today? Thankfully, he also was able to correct himself. Rather, not correct — for he believed in the Verbal Plenary Inspiration of the Scriptures in the autographs — but improve, to grow in knowledge of the truth: “Yes, in the past, I only talked about the inerrancy in the autographs, but surely there is something more than that — the preservation. How can inspiration be without preservation?” “Inspiration without preservation”, he said, “is illogical”. Sure, they are twin doctrines. So when I began to teach on the VPP of Scripture, he said amen to it. He was also gripped and convicted by the doctrine and took a strong stand for it. His wisdom, his humility!
Then, not only by remembering past leaders, we are also told here to remember present leaders. So over in verse 7, “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God”, and they have already gone home to glory. But also remember them who are right now, ruling over you, your present pastors and teachers, spiritual leaders. Verse 17, “Obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.” The word “obey” here, peitho, according to my teacher Dr Homer Kent (he wrote a good commentary on the book of Hebrews), means “assenting to another’s direction.” In other words, you yield, you agree to follow your pastor’s spiritual leadership and direction. You may not agree with him, but then you obey. And this is also highlighted by the second word, “submit”. “Submit” here in the original is the word hupeiko. Hupeiko, according to my teacher Dr Kent from Grace Seminary, is “the yielding of one’s contrary opinions in favor of someone else’s.” In other words, when there is a disagreement, I will submit to the one who rules over me, who teaches me, who is watching over my soul, my pastor, my teacher. Here, brotherly love would lead me to say, “OK, let me submit/yield/obey/assent to another’s direction” as long as it does not contradict Scripture.
Pastors have to give an account to the Lord in a way many of you will not be required to do. Since we have been placed in a church to feed and lead God’s flock, sometimes when the Lord speaks, He speaks to the pastor first. He will put a burden in his heart, a conviction to set the spiritual direction. It must be in the Lord according to God’s Word. If it is not, then it definitely did not come from the Lord. But if the Lord has burdened the heart of the pastor to set a spiritual direction and it is not contrary to God’s Word, brotherly love would say, “Let me submit myself to him, because he is accountable, so that he can fulfil God’s will and purpose with joy and not with grief/pain/sorrow for that is unprofitable for me.” If there is opposition and criticism and rebellion, it is very painful. It brings much sorrow and not good for your pastor to serve with grief in his heart. That is “unprofitable for you”, you lose out on God’s blessing — what He has in store for the church. Thus “unprofitable for you” presently because you lose out on God’s blessing and the church will lose out on God’s blessing, and also on future rewards. You lose out on future rewards, for when we stand before the judgement seat of Christ, we want to make sure our service for the Lord is gold, silver and precious stones, and not wood, hay and stubble. We will suffer loss if it is wood, hay and stubble. We have not served the Lord with brotherly love.
When the world is full of hatred and coldness, I pray the church will be a place of spiritual warmth and comfort, a place where there is charity, philadelphia, brotherly love — let it continue. For most of the years in True Life, I think we have practised and seen brotherly love in action. I pray it will continue in the days ahead. How many more days do we have? How much more time? I think we don’t have much time left. The Lord can come back at any time. When there is brotherly love there is much joy and peace in serving the Lord together as a family of Christ in the church. How can we do this? Among other things, let us “remember”. Remember them, our brethren who are in need, and remember our leaders, to submit to their spiritual leadership and to their teaching. May the Lord help us. (Pastor’s message at the Young Adults Fellowship Anniversary, 1 October 2022. The first part was published as “Love and Remembrance” in TLBPC Weekly, 28 May 2023.)
