Living in a glass house,
pastors face a lot of pressure.
“It’s absolutely essential
if we are to do well, to finish well, to have a healthy marriage,” said Danny
Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest.
Akin, who has been married
32 years, said his wedding day has been the second best day in his life —
second to his salvation experience at 18.
BR photo by Dianna L. Cagle Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, delivers a sermon about pastors and their families as part of the annual Pastor’s Conference. |
“(It’s) important to have
lady who will wrap (her arms around you),” Akin said Nov. 8 during the annual
Pastor’s Conference. “(It) makes a huge difference when those difficult times
come.”
Pastors face demands on
their time from their family and their church.
Using Col. 3:18-21, Akin
stressed the importance of the job descriptions given in scripture.
Husbands, wives, children
and fathers each have job descriptions.
Yielding her will, a wife
honors Christ by submitting to her husband, Akin said. This submission does not
mean inferiority in any way.
Husbands are commanded to
love their wives. Akin pointed out that the command to husbands involves two
imperatives, indicating a continuous action.
“The love he is talking
about there is a decision, a volitional act of your will,” Akin said. “You love
her even when she’s not lovely.”
Akin told the pastors to look
at the cross and “see how He loved you.
“He, in amazing grace, loved
you.”
The love here, Akin said, is
one of sacrifice.
The imperatives also
included a warning against husbands being harsh or bitter toward their wives.
“Bitterness is a cancer to
the soul,” Akin said. “Bitterness will eat up a man of God.”
Nothing exists in ministry
that is more dangerous than bitterness, Akin said.
“It eats you up,” he said,
but doesn’t bother the other person. “Bitterness is a cancer of the soul.”
Colossians also tells
children to obey their parents “in everything,” he said.
“I believe we are to obey
comprehensively not absolutely,” in that children and pastors should not to do
anything illegal, immoral, unethical or unbiblical.
“We’re not CEOs or
autocrats,” Akin said. “We’re shepherds.”
But Akin said if children
have to choose between their parents and God, parents should lose.
Colossians also shares an
imperative for fathers to encourage their children.
“We as men are called to
lead our houses,” Akin said. “They do listen to what you say and they care what
you think about them.”
Fathers should build their
children up.
At the end of Akin’s sermon,
he turned to talk of the Great Commission Task Force report.
“At its soul is getting of
the gospel to the nations,” Akin said.
Pastors are the key to a
resurgence of the Great Commission.
“It’s all on you,” Akin
said. “I’m passing the baton.”
The back of the report
contains challenges. One section was on families.
Akin shared seven of the nine
challenges with pastors:
- Emphasize biblical gender
roles with fathers taking the lead for spiritual warfare of their families.
- Build gospel-saturated
homes.
- Develop strategies for
sharing the gospel.
- Adopt a different
unreached people group; pray for a month.
- Adopt a different church
plant a month or year, praying and supporting.
- Spend family vacation
participating in a mission trip.
- Consider setting up a
missions savings account for child or grandchild.
To learn more about the
family as well as other challenges from the Great Commission Task Force report
visit www.pray4gcr.com/reports/.