Brothers, We Are Not Political Pundits

 By Kevin DeYoung - Posted at Clearly Reformed:

We can be known for “prophetic” political commentary or we can be known for textually careful, biblically rich, theologically deep, church-focused gospel ministry.

When I started out in ministry 23 years ago, I was greatly helped by John Piper’s book Brothers, We Are Not Professionals. Everything within me resonated with Piper’s call for pastors to be serious students of the Bible and to eschew ministry models based on gimmicks, entertainment, and a desperate attempt to seem relevant to the world. If there are any young men in the same place I was two decades ago—earnest, eager, and ignorant of all sorts of things you don’t know you are ignorant of—let me implore you as a now middle-aged pastor: “Brothers, we are not professionals, and neither are we pundits.”

But Kevin, isn’t everything political?

In a sense, yes.

Are you saying, then, that pastors must stay silent on the most pressing issues of our day?

No.

Of course, pastors should bring biblical truth to bear on the big questions of our day. But let us focus on the big questions—the questions that the Bible means to address, the questions that the Church Fathers and the Medieval scholastics and the magisterial Reformers and the Puritans and the best Christian minds of the last three hundred years can help us with. These questions are not usually the ones generated by the 24-hour news cycle or stirred up by the social media algorithm. I suspect most of us would be embarrassed to go back and revisit our predictions and two cents about the news from five years ago considering what we didn’t know at the time and how transient almost every bit of “breaking news” turns out to be.

Don’t get me wrong, we need some Christians (though, undoubtedly, not as many as we have now) to participate in the maelstrom of cultural commentary, just like we need Christians in every non-sinful area of human activity. Political punditry is a legitimate calling. It’s just not the pastor’s calling. The man who comments constantly on the things “everyone is talking about” is almost assuredly not talking about the things the Bible is most interested in talking about. That word “constant” is important. It takes wisdom to know when jumping in the fray might be necessary, but we don’t need pastors looking like a poor man’s version of the Daily Wire or the New York Times.

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See also:

• It's Often Wiser to Not Post at All - Breakpoint