Linguistic considerations on calling

David Witthof continues his look at the “call”

Calling has been an important topic in my life. The idea of pastoral calling is critical to the church as well, because through the pastoral call we receive new people to minister to the church in our context. So a proper understanding of calling is essential in maintaining a proper ecclesiology, or a theology of the church.

I’ve written before on calling. The summary of my previous article is that pastoral calling as explained in scripture is based on an internal calling, which is a desire to do the work of a pastor, and an external calling, which is the recognition by the church that one is qualified (according to scripture) to do the work required and has good character. But in this article, I want to look at the understanding of the word “calling” and how this particular English word has negatively affected the theology of the “pastoral call.”

First of all, the word “call” does not come into the picture in regards to pastoral calling. In the major passages on pastoral calling and ministry, the word does not appear. This does not necessarily mean that we should not use the word. There are many words we use to explain Biblical ideas, and those words aren’t the exact ones that are in scripture. But we need to make sure then that our word has not tainted our understanding of what God means when he wrote about pastoral calling.

When we hear the different forms of “call” in our daily life, it is often in the context of phone calls, in which we hear the voice of the other party. The emphasis is on the direct connection and immediacy of the communication. We might also think of someone calling across a room to another person. Again, the aspects that stick out are the immediacy and the audible voice. With this English idea of calling combined with a verse like 1 Cor 1:1, in which Paul says that he was “called” as an apostle of Jesus Christ, we might assume that we have a proper understanding of calling-namely, that it is based on immediacy, feeling, and experiences.

But I would suggest that this is entirely incorrect. First of all, 1 Cor 1:1 is a misunderstanding and needs to be read in its context. Namely, Paul was converted and called by voice. Paul’s calling was different in two ways. First, he was called to be an apostle, not an elder. These are two very different offices. Second, he was called by Jesus Christ audibly and visually. In this way, the English word calling fits very well in 1 Cor 1:1 in that Paul’s calling was immediate and very experiential. This type of misunderstanding feeds the reason why the phrase “pastoral calling” is misunderstood in the Army.

Pastoral calling is the understanding by which people are brought into the work as pastors. But in the relevant passages about being an elder/overseer (1 Timothy 3, Eph 4:11-13, Acts 20:28, 1 Peter 5:1-3), we don’t see the idea of this immediacy. What is evident from these passages is the need for qualified people, as determined by scripture and the church, and for people who are willing to do the work. The process itself mentions nothing along the lines of “calling” as we understand it. That is, a “pastoral call” is not shown to be immediate or strongly experiential.

Now, in some ways, this is perhaps an argument from silence. The verses do not give an example of the steps one takes on the road to pastoral ministry. But if a person wants to do the work, it would take time to confirm the person’s character and ability, and the weight of the decision would be on character and qualifications.

This means that the emphasis on immediacy and feeling (the “I knew I had to go…” that I hear too often) is lost, and the infallibility of “calling” that we often feel about those who claim it is lost as well. If you got a phone call with God on the other end, you could claim immediacy and a sort of infallibility of your pastoral calling. But that is not how it works. Once again, the prominent passages of scripture on pastoral calling should inform and correct our understanding of calling so that it centers on a desire for the work and the qualification and character of the individual, not immediacy, emotionalism and extraneous experiences.

Writer: David Witthoff is a Salvationist from the Oakbrook Terrace Corps. He recently graduated from the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago with a BA in Pastoral Ministry. Currently he lives in Hamilton, Massachusetts, USA where he is working towards a Master of Arts in Old Testament and a Master of Arts in Biblical Languages at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. David enjoys writing music, exegeting, sci-fi tv shows, running, soccer, languages and talking about the Army with his friends. His hope is to be the best soldier, officer, student and teacher of the scripture that he can be.

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