“No one read the article I wrote. In over a year, not one person had read the article that I spent more than a year researching and writing,” are words that a colleague once told me over a cup of coffee. Such an experience can be disappointing and is not unlike the feeling that preachers often have after diligently working over a passage of Scripture, praying, studying, and crafting a sermon. Lines from the Beatles’ Elenor Rigby come to mind: “Father McKenzie / Writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear / No one comes near.” I suspect that some authors spend years writing books and then peek at their Amazon sales ranking and wonder who might be reading their tome. All these experiences are common and the feelings entirely natural, but these scenarios should provoke an important question: “Why am I writing an article?” Why do we write articles, books, and sermons? What is our goal and aim? There should be a twofold aim for our theological labors: to glorify God and to edify the church.

1. Glorifying God

The apostle Paul instructed the Corinthians that even the most pedestrian activities should be done to the glory of God: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Paul casts a wide net over every activity in life—something as ordinary as eating and drinking—to even greater tasks, such as serving the church, loving one another, or giving witness to the gospel of Christ. When Paul says to glorify God in “whatever you do,” it means that there is no task too great or small that can evade this exhortation. If glorifying God in small tasks such as eating is a desideratum, then surely, we should seek God’s glory in the articles, books, and sermons that we write. The challenge is, however, that we live in a world that competes for our affections. While Christians of every age must be on guard against seeking the praise of people, the digitalization of our culture has introduced particular and ever-present temptations. The lure of building a brand, establishing a platform, harvesting “likes” and subscribers sounds a siren song. Amid the bright lights and the enticement of acceptance and admiration, we might all too quickly forget the chief purpose for why we carry out our labors. Does the praise of man become a poor and sickly substitute for the praise from God? As Jesus pressed crowds and the religious leaders, “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God” (John 5:44)? All too often we seek a crown of glory rather than find contentment in wearing Christ’s crown of thorns. How, then, can we ensure that we keep the glory of God as our lodestar as we carry out our labors?

As we engage in our theological labors we must persistently, perhaps even daily, pray the words of John the Baptist: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). By the power of the Holy Spirit, this prayer bears fruit in changing our desires. No longer do we seek personal glory, but we instead seek God’s glory. No longer do we boast in our own accomplishments, but we instead boast in what God has done in Christ. One of the ways we can keep the glory of the triune God as our chief goal in our theological labors is to remember that all our work is preparing us for the beatific vision. The Westminster Larger Catechism (1647) asks the question, “What shall be done to the righteous at the day of judgment?” Among the many blessings enumerated in the response, the catechism says that the greatest blessing is especially “the immediate vision and fruition of God the Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, to all eternity” (q. 90).

Thus, do we realize that the books that we write, the sermons we preach, and the articles we publish are one of the ways we prepare ourselves for beholding the face of God in the face of Christ? What does Christ teach us? “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt 5:8). This means as we write, it is natural that we would want many people to read our work. But our greatest motivation should be that we write for an audience of One—our triune God. When H. B. Charles Jr. was preparing to preach to a group of people where many pastors in attendance, he sought the counsel of his preaching professor and told him that he would preach to the congregation and ignore the pastors. His preaching professor counseled him, “That’s a good thought, but I think about these kinds of events somewhat differently. When I stand to preach, whatever the setting, I don’t focus on the pastors or the congregation. I just preach to an audience of One.”1 The subtitle of the chapter where Charles recounts this sage advice is, “Seeing ministry as service to God, not a performance for man.” This counsel is relevant not only for preaching but for our academic work, such as writing books and essays.

Do we write for an audience of One? Do we write for the glory of our triune God and lay our labors before him? Above all else, do we seek his, “Well done, good and faithful servant…. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matt. 25:23)? If we remember that all of our theological work is preparing us for the beatific vision and thus, we write for an audience of One, then we will not worry how many people will read, “like,” or purchase our books and essays. We will be satisfied with seeking the glory of God and his approbation.

2. Edifying the Church

At the same time, we also remember that we do not stand before the presence of God alone. The triune God has redeemed and united us to Christ’s body, the church. He has blessed us with talents and gifts, and those endowments are not for ourselves. Christ has ascended and poured out the Spirit upon the church to distribute gifts, and among those gifts are pastors and teachers (Eph. 4:12–14). As Paul reminds us, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone” (1 Cor 12:4–6). To what end does the triune God give the church gifts? “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor 12:7). The church has historically placed the individual’s role within the wider body of the church under the doctrine of the communion of the saints. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) traces the lines of Paul’s statements when he says that just as one member of a physical body redounds to the good of the rest of the body, the same truth applies to a spiritual body, that is, the church. “Since all the faithful are one body, the good of one is communicated to another.”2 Or, in the words of the Westminster Confession (1646), “All saints, that are united to Jesus Christ their Head, by his Spirit, and by faith, have fellowship with him in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory: and, being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other’s gifts and graces, and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man” (26:1). Our chief aim, therefore, for our theological labors should be the glory of God, but a secondary aim should be the edification of the church.

Once again, we should ask ourselves, “Why do I write?” Do we write so that people congratulate us? Do we seek “likes”? Are we building a platform, a brand? Are we writing so we can put an entry on our resume, an entry that will get us one step closer to a pay raise, the next rank on the professional ladder, or a book contract? Do we pursue entry into an elite coterie of scholars and influencers, or through our writing are we trying to give people a better vantage point to behold the glory of the triune God? Are we plying our Spirit-given gifts to show people Christ and equip them to teach others how they can get a better glimpse of his glory? The aim of our work makes a difference and shapes its nature and even our lives. John A. D’Elia chronicles the career of evangelical scholar George Eldon Ladd (1911–1982) who made the pursuit of academic respectability one of the main thrusts of his theological writing.3 Ladd wanted great universities to notice evangelical scholarship and to respect it, and so he submitted articles to prestigious journals and participated in scholarly societies.4 Ladd believed he reached the pinnacle of his efforts when he published his magnum opus with Harper & Row, a publisher outside of the evangelical world.5 Ladd waited with baited breath in anticipation of its reception in the wider academic community and was devastated when it was negatively reviewed. He saw his life’s work as a failure because of the blow of a single review.6 He arguably never recovered from this event.7 If we seek respectability, acclaim, or position, then we tread upon thin ice always in danger of falling through into the icy waters of disappointment, despair, and discouragement. If we walk upon the solid ground of seeking to glorify God in our theological writing and to magnify his name in the church, thereby edifying the church, we will never be disappointed.

3. Conclusion

So, why do we write articles, books, or preach sermons? Ideally, our desire should be to write for the glory of our triune God, for an audience of One. In the words of John Newton (1725–1801) in a letter to a friend, “May the cheering contemplation of the hope set before us, support and animate us to improve the interval, and fill us with an holy ambition of shining as lights in the world, to the praise and glory of his grace, who has called us out of darkness.”8 If we, first and foremost, seek God’s glory rather than our own, we will not seek the praise of people but of God. “Every blessing we receive from him,” writes Newton, “is a token of his favour, and a pledge of that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory which he has reserved for us. O! to hear him say at last, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!’ will be a rich amends for all that we can lose, suffer, or forbear, for his sake.”9 With the glory of God as our lodestar, we can aim our theological scholarship at the church for its edification. When we write an essay, let’s pray that we are able to equip better the pastor in his sermon preparation so he can feed Christ’s sheep. When we write books, let’s hope to assist theological students so they can understand God’s Word so they are equipped to teach others of the wonders and glories of our triune God. Let’s undertake our academic work in the hope that someone in the pew who is struggling with understanding Scripture will pick it up, learn, and grow in her conformity to Christ. These are just a few ways that we can aim our theological scholarship at the church. Does this mean we cannot participate in the academy? Of course not. But to pursue theological scholarship merely for the sake of the academy rather than for the edification of the church trades the blessings of our inheritance in Christ and the communion of the saints for a bowl of lentils that may in the moment satisfy our appetite for recognition but in the end leave us ever dissatisfied and hungry for more. Therefore, to borrow words from Paul, whatever you do, whether in writing or preaching, do it all to the glory of God and the edification of the church.

---

[1] H. B. Charles Jr., On Pastoring: A Short Guide to Living, Leading, and Ministering as a Pastor (Chicago: Moody, 2016), 19.

[2] Thomas Aquinas, The Sermon Conferences of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Apostles’ Creed, trans. Nicholas Ayo (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 13 (p. 135).

[3] John A. D’Elia, A Place at the Table: George Eldon Ladd and the Rehabilitation of Evangelical Scholarship in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Cf. the discussion by Andrew David Naselli, “Three Reflections on Evangelical Academic Publishing,” Themelios 39.3 (2014): 428–54.

[4] D’Elia, A Place at the Table, xi.

[5] D’Elia, A Place at the Table, xix–xx, 126.

[6] D’Elia, A Place at the Table, 136–41.

[7] D’Elia, A Place at the Table, 144–50.

[8] John Newton, “Letter XI,” in The Works of the Rev. John Newton, 12 vols. (London: T. Hamilton, 1821), 2:43–46, here 45.

[9] Newton, “Letter XI,” 45–46.

 

---